Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Facultade de Psicoloxía, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Galiza, Spain.
Psychophysiology. 2013 Aug;50(8):743-57. doi: 10.1111/psyp.12063. Epub 2013 Jun 3.
Although previous ERP studies have demonstrated slowing of visuospatial and motor processes with age, such studies frequently included only young and elderly participants, and lacked information about age-related changes across the adult lifespan. The present research used a Simon task with two irrelevant dimensions (position and direction of an arrow) to study visuospatial (N2 posterior contralateral, N2pc) and motor (response-locked lateralized readiness potential, LRP-r) processes in young, middle-aged, and elderly adults. The reaction time and motor execution stage (LRP-r) increased gradually with age, while visuospatial processes (N2pc latency) were similarly delayed in the older groups. No age-related increase in interference was observed, probably related to a delay in processing the symbolic meaning of the direction in older groups, which was consistent with age-related differences in distributional analyses and N2pc amplitude modulations.
尽管先前的 ERP 研究表明，随着年龄的增长，视空间和运动过程会减慢，但这些研究通常只包括年轻和老年参与者，并且缺乏有关成年期整个年龄段相关变化的信息。本研究使用具有两个不相关维度（箭头的位置和方向）的 Simon 任务来研究年轻、中年和老年成年人的视空间（N2 后对侧，N2pc）和运动（反应锁定的侧化准备电位，LRP-r）过程。随着年龄的增长，反应时间和运动执行阶段（LRP-r）逐渐增加，而视空间过程（N2pc 潜伏期）在年龄较大的组中也同样延迟。没有观察到与年龄相关的干扰增加，这可能与年龄较大的组中处理方向的符号意义的延迟有关，这与分布分析和 N2pc 幅度调制的年龄相关差异一致。
