title: Working memory in healthy aging and in Parkinson's disease: evidence of interference effects.
abstract: Focusing on relevant information while suppressing the irrelevant one are critical abilities for different cognitive processes. However, their functioning has been scarcely investigated in the working memory (WM) domain, in both healthy and pathological conditions. The present research aimed to study these abilities in aging and Parkinson's disease (PD), testing three groups of healthy participants (young, older and elderly) and one of PD patients, employing a new experimental paradigm. Results showed that the transient storing of irrelevant information in WM causes substantial interference effects, which were remarkable in elderly individuals on both response latency and accuracy. Interestingly, PD patients responded faster and were equally accurate compared to a matched control group. Taken together, findings confirm the existence of similar mechanisms for orienting attention inwards to WM contents or outwards to perceptual stimuli, and suggest the suitability of our task to assess WM functioning in both healthy aging and PD.
authors.affiliation: a Department of General Psychology , University of Padova , Padova , Italy.
authors.forename: Elisa
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Di Rosa
authors.affiliation: b Department of Psychology , University of Milano-Bicocca , Milan , Italy.|c NeuroMI - Milan Center for Neuroscience , Milan , Italy.
authors.forename: Doris
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Pischedda
authors.affiliation: b Department of Psychology , University of Milano-Bicocca , Milan , Italy.|c NeuroMI - Milan Center for Neuroscience , Milan , Italy.
authors.forename: Paolo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Cherubini
authors.affiliation: a Department of General Psychology , University of Padova , Padova , Italy.|d Human Inspired Technologies Research Center, University of Padova , Padova , Italy.
authors.forename: Daniela
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mapelli
authors.affiliation: e Department of Neurosciences, Biomedicine and Movement Sciences, Neurology Section , University of Verona , Verona , Italy.
authors.forename: Stefano
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tamburin
authors.affiliation: f Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC), Bielefeld University , Bielefeld , Germany.
authors.forename: Michele
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Burigo
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention; D005260:Female; D000073656:Healthy Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000523:psychology*; D011930:Reaction Time; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Parkinson’s disease; Working memory; aging; inhibition; interference