title: The impact of executive capacity and age on mechanisms underlying multidimensional feature selection.
abstract: This study examined the role of executive capacity (EC) and aging in multidimensional feature selection. ERPs were recorded from healthy young and old adults of either high or average EC based on neuropsychological testing. Participants completed a color selective attention task in which they responded to target letter-forms in a specified color (attend condition) while ignoring letter-forms in a different color (ignore condition). Two selection negativity (SN) components were computed: the SN(Color) (attend-ignore), indexing early color selection, and the SN(Letter) (targets-standards), indexing early letter-form selection. High EC subjects exhibited self-terminating feature selection; the processing of one feature type was reduced if information from the other feature type suggested the stimulus did not contain the task-relevant feature. In contrast, average EC subjects exhaustively selected all features of a stimulus. The self-terminating approach was associated with better task accuracy. Higher EC was also linked to stronger early selection of target letter-forms, but did not modulate the seemingly less demanding task of color selection. Mechanisms utilized for multidimensional feature selection appear to be consistent across the lifespan, although there was age-related slowing of processing speed for early selection of letter features. We conclude that EC is a critical determinant of how multidimensional feature processing is carried out.
authors: Center for Brain/Mind Medicine, Division of Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology, Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 221 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA. Electronic address: kmott@partners.org.
authors: Katherine K
authors: KK
authors: Mott
authors: Center for Brain/Mind Medicine, Division of Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology, Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 221 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA. Electronic address: balperin@partners.org.
authors: Brittany R
authors: BR
authors: Alperin
authors: Center for Brain/Mind Medicine, Division of Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology, Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 221 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA. Electronic address: afox4@partners.org.
authors: Anne M
authors: AM
authors: Fox
authors: Department of Psychology, Tufts University, 490 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA 02155, USA. Electronic address: pholcomb@tufts.edu.
authors: Phillip J
authors: PJ
authors: Holcomb
authors: Center for Brain/Mind Medicine, Division of Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology, Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 221 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA. Electronic address: kdaffner@partners.org.
authors: Kirk R
authors: KR
authors: Daffner
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D056344:Executive Function / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Aging; ERPs; Executive control; Multidimensional feature selection; Selection negativity; Selective attention