Department of Psychology, Graduate School of Human Sciences, Osaka University, Japan.
Behav Brain Res. 2012 Jul 15;233(1):90-8. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2012.04.044. Epub 2012 May 2.
Effects of practice on a conflict task in elderly individuals are examined with a focus on its impact on executive function in working memory. During a short-term practice period, healthy elderly participants practiced switching attention using a Stroop task that involved a conflict between a task relevant stimulus and an irrelevant stimulus. To explore neural substrates underlying practice effects, two working memory tasks were used: a focus reading span test (F-RST) and a non-focus reading span test (NF-RST); the NF-RST test demanded greater switching attention due to a conflict between the relevant task stimulus and an irrelevant task stimulus, thus requiring an attention switch from the latter to the former. Following the Stroop task practice, fMRI data showed that participants who had engaged in practice had significant increases in activation in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), the left inferior parietal lobule (IPL), the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the precuneus regions during the NF-RST. By contrast, a control group, which did not practice, showed no significant increases in these regions. Results suggest that practice on conflict tasks in elderly individuals activated regions related to conflict perceiving and attention switching regions as well as attention-maintenance regions thereby improving performance on tasks requiring a high degree of attention control of working memory.
研究了练习对老年人冲突任务的影响，重点关注其对工作记忆执行功能的影响。在短期练习期间，健康的老年参与者使用斯特鲁普任务（涉及任务相关刺激和无关刺激之间的冲突）练习注意力转换。为了探索练习效果的神经基础，使用了两项工作记忆任务：专注阅读广度测试（F-RST）和非专注阅读广度测试（NF-RST）；由于相关任务刺激和无关任务刺激之间存在冲突，NF-RST 测试需要更大的注意力转换，因此需要将注意力从后者转移到前者。在进行斯特鲁普任务练习后， fMRI 数据显示，进行练习的参与者在进行 NF-RST 时，前扣带皮层（ACC）、左顶下小叶（IPL）、左背外侧前额叶皮层（DLPFC）和楔前叶区域的激活显著增加。相比之下，未进行练习的对照组在这些区域没有明显增加。结果表明，老年人对冲突任务的练习激活了与冲突感知和注意力转换区域以及注意力维持区域相关的区域，从而提高了对需要高度注意力控制工作记忆的任务的表现。
