title: Response-Conflict Moderates the Cognitive Control of Episodic and Contextual Load in Older Adults.
abstract: Decline in cognitive control is one of the primary cognitive changes in normal aging. Reaching a consensus regarding the nature of these age-related changes, however, is complicated by the complexity of cognitive control as a construct.
  
  
  
  Healthy older and younger adults participated in a multifactorial test of cognitive control. Within participants, the procedure varied as a function of the amount contextual load, episodic load, and response-conflict load present.
  
  
  
  We found that older adults showed impaired performance relative to younger adults. We also found, however, that the response selection process underlying the response-conflict manipulation was a major moderator of age-related differences in both the contextual and episodic load conditions-suggesting a hierarchical organization.
  
  
  
  These findings are consistent with previous findings, suggesting that deficits in cognitive control in older adults are directly related to the resolution of response-conflict and that other apparent deficits may be derivative upon the more basic response-conflict related deficit.
authors.affiliation: Cognitive Neuroscience Division, Department of Neurology and the Taub Institute, Columbia University, New York.
authors.forename: Teal S
authors.initials: TS
authors.lastname: Eich
authors.affiliation: Cognitive Neuroscience Division, Department of Neurology and the Taub Institute, Columbia University, New York.
authors.forename: Brian C
authors.initials: BC
authors.lastname: Rakitin
authors.affiliation: Cognitive Neuroscience Division, Department of Neurology and the Taub Institute, Columbia University, New York. ys11@columbia.edu.
authors.forename: Yaakov
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Stern
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D056344:Executive Function / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Cognition; Cognitive control; Executive function; Memory; Stimulus-response association; Task-switching