The enhanced Simon effect for older adults is reduced when the irrelevant location information is conveyed by an accessory stimulus

2005 ◽  
Vol 119 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert W. Proctor ◽  
David F. Pick ◽  
Kim-Phuong L. Vu ◽  
Rachael E. Anderson
Author(s):  
Kathleen Maetens ◽  
David Henderickx ◽  
Eric Soetens

To understand the relation between the Simon effect and the time course of relevant and irrelevant code activations, we presented the response signal before or simultaneously with a go/no-go signal in an accessory Simon task. A peripheral accessory signal could appear before, simultaneously with or after the go/no-go signal. We observed a Simon effect when the accessory signal was presented just before or simultaneously with the go signal, irrespective of the delay between response and go/no-go signal. The Simon effect reversed when the accessory signal was presented 150 ms after the go signal when response information was presented first and the participants had to make a go/no-go decision afterwards or when they had to select a response when the go signal appeared. The reversal did not occur when both decisions were required at the same time. Our data suggest that the integration and release of event files are involved in the occurrence of the reversal. Response activation induced by the accessory stimulus facilitates/interferes with the response when it is presented before the event file is integrated. When the accessory stimulus is presented after integration, the automatically activated response is inhibited, causing a delay in the corresponding reaction times.


Motor Control ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Senne Braem ◽  
Stephanie Supply ◽  
Sanne P. Roels ◽  
Wim Notebaert

Most cognitive control effects, although numerously reported in computer task studies, have rarely been tested outside the laboratory. The purpose of this study was twofold. First, we aimed to improve the ecological validity of a well-studied congruency effect. The Simon effect (Simon, 1969) is the observation that an irrelevant stimulus location can facilitate or impede task performance when it is congruent or incongruent with the response location. Secondly, we wanted to investigate the role of action experience on the Simon effect. In this study, experienced bowlers were asked to hit either the left- or rightmost pin, depending on the pitch of a tone. Irrelevant to the task, this tone could be presented in the congruent or incongruent ear. Our results demonstrate that the Simon effect can be observed outside the laboratory and that weekly training at bowling may help in shielding against irrelevant location stimuli.


Author(s):  
Barbara Treccani ◽  
Carlo Umiltà ◽  
Mariaelena Tagliabue

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colleen M. Kelley ◽  
Larry L. Jacoby

Abstract Cognitive control constrains retrieval processing and so restricts what comes to mind as input to the attribution system. We review evidence that older adults, patients with Alzheimer's disease, and people with traumatic brain injury exert less cognitive control during retrieval, and so are susceptible to memory misattributions in the form of dramatic levels of false remembering.


2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (5) ◽  
pp. 1258-1277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan K. MacPherson

PurposeThe aim of this study was to determine the impact of cognitive load imposed by a speech production task on the speech motor performance of healthy older and younger adults. Response inhibition, selective attention, and working memory were the primary cognitive processes of interest.MethodTwelve healthy older and 12 healthy younger adults produced multiple repetitions of 4 sentences containing an embedded Stroop task in 2 cognitive load conditions: congruent and incongruent. The incongruent condition, which required participants to suppress orthographic information to say the font colors in which color words were written, represented an increase in cognitive load relative to the congruent condition in which word text and font color matched. Kinematic measures of articulatory coordination variability and movement duration as well as a behavioral measure of sentence production accuracy were compared between groups and conditions and across 3 sentence segments (pre-, during-, and post-Stroop).ResultsIncreased cognitive load in the incongruent condition was associated with increased articulatory coordination variability and movement duration, compared to the congruent Stroop condition, for both age groups. Overall, the effect of increased cognitive load was greater for older adults than younger adults and was greatest in the portion of the sentence in which cognitive load was manipulated (during-Stroop), followed by the pre-Stroop segment. Sentence production accuracy was reduced for older adults in the incongruent condition.ConclusionsIncreased cognitive load involving response inhibition, selective attention, and working memory processes within a speech production task disrupted both the stability and timing with which speech was produced by both age groups. Older adults' speech motor performance may have been more affected due to age-related changes in cognitive and motoric functions that result in altered motor cognition.


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