title: Cognitive Control As a Double-Edged Sword.
abstract: Cognitive control, the ability to limit attention to goal-relevant information, aids performance on a wide range of laboratory tasks. However, there are many day-to-day functions which require little to no control and others which even benefit from reduced control. We review behavioral and neuroimaging evidence demonstrating that reduced control can enhance the performance of both older and, under some circumstances, younger adults. Using healthy aging as a model, we demonstrate that decreased cognitive control benefits performance on tasks ranging from acquiring and using environmental information to generating creative solutions to problems. Cognitive control is thus a double-edged sword - aiding performance on some tasks when fully engaged, and many others when less engaged.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada; Rotman Research Institute, Toronto, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Tarek
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Amer
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Karen L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Campbell
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada; Rotman Research Institute, Toronto, ON, Canada. Electronic address: hasher@psych.utoronto.ca.
authors.forename: Lynn
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Hasher
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology / Q000523:psychology; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: aging; cognitive control