Aging and inhibition: Beyond a unitary view of inhibitory processing in attention.

TLDR

The study situates inhibitory processing within the broader context of aging and neuroanatomical and physiological changes. The authors investigated whether aging generally reduces inhibitory processing efficiency. Thirty elderly and 32 young adults completed tasks measuring inhibitory function, including response compatibility, negative priming, stopping, spatial precuing, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, and the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire. The study found limited age‑related differences: older adults struggled more with stopping responses and rule adoption, but performed similarly to younger adults on negative priming, response compatibility, spatial precuing, and self‑reported cognitive failures.

Abstract

The authors examined the question of whether a decrease in the efficiency of inhibitory processing with aging is a general phenomenon. Thirty elderly and 32 young adults performed a series of tasks from which the authors could extract measures of inhibitory function. The tasks and task components included response compatibility, negative priming, stopping, spatial precuing, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), and the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ). Only limited evidence for age-related differences in inhibitory function was obtained. Old adults had more difficulty than young adults in stopping an overt response and adopting new rules in a categorization task. However, elderly and young adults produced equivalent negative priming effects, response compatibility effects, spatial precuing effects, and self-reported cognitive failures. The findings are discussed in terms of the relationship between aging, inhibitory processes, and neuroanatomical and physiological function.