Department of Psychology, Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany.
Department of Psychology, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany.
PLoS One. 2020 Apr 30;15(4):e0231964. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0231964. eCollection 2020.
In older age, learning and feedback processing are usually impaired. This is thought to be due to impairments in the dopaminergic system and the anterior cingulate cortex. By contrast, processing of affective information seems to remain relatively intact. Recent research has also demonstrated that cognitive functioning can be influenced by affective materials or contexts and lead to an enhancement in diverse cognitive tasks. Hence, the aim of the present study was to explore, whether emotional feedback would counteract age-related learning deficits and strengthen early and later phases of feedback processing as reflected in the feedback-related negativity (FRN) and P3b of the event-related potential (ERP). Younger and older participants conducted a probabilistic reinforcement learning task in which the accurate responses had to be learned via feedback. In emotional trials, feedback stimuli consisted of faces with smiling and disgusted expressions, and in a non-emotional condition, positive and negative feedback was indicated by the background color of faces with neutral expressions. Our main results were that older adults showed better learning performance in the emotional feedback condition and a larger P3b after emotional than non-emotional feedback indexing heightened working memory updating after task relevant events.
在老年时期，学习和反馈处理通常会受到损害。这被认为是由于多巴胺能系统和前扣带皮层的损伤。相比之下，情感信息的处理似乎仍然相对完整。最近的研究还表明，认知功能可以受到情感材料或情境的影响，从而增强各种认知任务的表现。因此，本研究旨在探讨情绪反馈是否可以克服与年龄相关的学习缺陷，并加强反馈相关负波（FRN）和事件相关电位（ERP）中的 P3b 所反映的早期和晚期反馈处理。年轻和年长的参与者进行了一项概率强化学习任务，其中需要通过反馈来学习准确的反应。在情绪试验中，反馈刺激由带有微笑和厌恶表情的面孔组成，而在非情绪条件下，带有中性表情的面孔的背景颜色表示积极和消极的反馈。我们的主要结果是，年长的成年人在情绪反馈条件下表现出更好的学习表现，并且在情绪反馈后出现更大的 P3b，这表明在与任务相关的事件后，工作记忆更新得到了增强。
