title: Age-related differences in the use of automatic and controlled processes in a situation of sustained attention.
abstract: Previous studies examining sustained attention ability in older adults have yielded inconsistent results: age-related decline in studies using traditionally formatted tasks (TFT), in which subjects have to respond to rare targets, and preservation in studies using Go/No-Go tasks, in which subjects have to withhold response to rare targets. The purpose of this study was to examine whether these discrepancies could be explained by a differential use of automatic and controlled processes according to age. To that end, we used two versions of the same task differing in response mode (TFT, Go/No-Go), and the event-related potential (ERP) technique. The within-task comparison first revealed that older adults exhibited a vigilance decrement in the TFT SART, while their performance actually improved in the Go/No-Go SART. Secondly, in both tasks, ERP results notably evidenced increased P2s and non-target P3s in older adults, components related to the allocation of attentional resources. Altogether, our results suggest that in both tasks older adults adopted a controlled processing mode, which resulted in opposite effects on performance according to the nature of the task.
authors.affiliation: INSERM U1114, Pôle de Psychiatrie, Hôpital Civil de Strasbourg, 1 place de l'Hôpital, 67091 Strasbourg Cedex, France.
authors.forename: Bérengère
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Staub
authors.affiliation: INSERM U1114, Pôle de Psychiatrie, Hôpital Civil de Strasbourg, 1 place de l'Hôpital, 67091 Strasbourg Cedex, France.
authors.forename: Nadège
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Doignon-Camus
authors.affiliation: INSERM U1114, Pôle de Psychiatrie, Hôpital Civil de Strasbourg, 1 place de l'Hôpital, 67091 Strasbourg Cedex, France.
authors.forename: José Eduardo
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Marques-Carneiro
authors.affiliation: INSERM U1114, Pôle de Psychiatrie, Hôpital Civil de Strasbourg, 1 place de l'Hôpital, 67091 Strasbourg Cedex, France.
authors.forename: Élisabeth
authors.initials: É
authors.lastname: Bacon
authors.affiliation: INSERM U1114, Pôle de Psychiatrie, Hôpital Civil de Strasbourg, 1 place de l'Hôpital, 67091 Strasbourg Cedex, France. Electronic address: anne.bonnefond@unistra.fr.
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bonnefond
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D056344:Executive Function / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Aging; SART; Time-on-task; Vigilance