Are there uniform age-related changes across tasks involving inhibitory control through access, deletion, and restraint functions? A preliminary investigation.

According to Hasher, Zacks, and May (Attention and performance XVII. Cognitive regulation of performance: Interaction of theory and application, pp. 653-675, MIT Press, 1999), a general age-related decline of inhibitory control affects the contents of working memory through three kinds of functions: limiting access to irrelevant information, deleting information that is no longer relevant, and restraining the production of dominant responses. Supportive evidence has been found in a wide variety of experimental tasks. In the present study, age-related changes were examined in the same group of 34 older (aged 60 to 82) and 30 younger (aged 19 to 30) adults performing the same set of tasks involving the access, deletion, or restraint function. The results indicate that age-related declines in inhibition are not uniform but vary depending on task-specific characteristics.