title: Use of the Hayling task to measure inhibition of prepotent responses in normal aging and Alzheimer's disease.
abstract: This study measures the effect of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and normal aging on the inhibition of prepotent responses. AD patients, normal aged controls, and young subjects were tested with the Hayling task, which measures the ability to inhibit a semantically constrained response, and with the Stroop procedure. AD patients showed a severe deficit in both error rates and response time on the Hayling task. Inhibition was also impaired on the Stroop procedure, both when using raw performance and when using an inhibition score that controlled for reading and naming speed. Normal aged participants showed modest impairment relative to young controls on both tests. Examination of individual performance in AD patients indicated that the impairment was found in most patients on the Hayling test but in only a subgroup of patients on the Stroop test.
authors.affiliation: Research center of the Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal and Department of Psychology, University of Montreal, Montreal, Que., Canada. sylvie.belleville@umontreal.ca
authors.forename: Sylvie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Belleville
authors.forename: Nancie
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Rouleau
authors.forename: Martial
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Van der Linden
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D001288:Attention; D001332:Automatism / Q000523:psychology; D003118:Color Perception; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011340:Problem Solving; D011930:Reaction Time; D011932:Reading; D012016:Reference Values; D012660:Semantics; D013067:Speech Perception