Departments of Neurology and Physiology, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California 94158, USA.
J Neurosci. 2011 Aug 31;31(35):12461-70. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1149-11.2011.
Temporal cues guide attentional resources toward relevant points in time, resulting in optimized behavioral performance. Although deficits in aspects of attention have been documented in older adults, it remains unknown whether the critical ability to orient attention in time is affected by normal aging. To address this, younger and older adults participated in a temporally cued target-response experiment while electroencephalographic data were recorded. Three conditions (one detection and two discrimination tasks) were used to manipulate task complexity. Response times show that younger adults, but not older adults, used temporal cues to enhance performance regardless of task complexity. Similarly, alpha band activity (8-12 Hz) and the contingent negative variation preceding targets indicated that only younger adults engaged prestimulus, anticipatory neural mechanisms associated with temporal cues. Overall, these results provide novel evidence that older adults do not use temporal cues to orient attention in time and support an expectation deficit in normal aging.
时间线索引导注意力资源关注相关时间点，从而优化行为表现。尽管老年人在注意力方面存在缺陷，但目前尚不清楚将注意力定向到时间的关键能力是否会受到正常衰老的影响。为了解决这个问题，年轻和年长的成年人在记录脑电图数据的同时参与了一个时间线索目标反应实验。使用三种条件（一个检测和两个辨别任务）来操纵任务的复杂性。反应时间表明，只有年轻成年人，而不是年长成年人，无论任务的复杂性如何，都利用时间线索来提高表现。同样，alpha 波段活动（8-12 Hz）和目标前的伴随性负变表明，只有年轻成年人参与了与时间线索相关的、与刺激前的预期神经机制。总的来说，这些结果提供了新的证据，表明老年人不会利用时间线索来定向注意力的时间，并且支持正常衰老中的期望缺陷。
