Stroop color-word interference and electroencephalogram activation: evidence for age-related decline of the anterior attention system.

Groups of healthy, community-dwelling younger and older adults performed a Stroop task in which color and word could be congruent or incongruent and spatially integrated or separated. During the task, continuous electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded from frontal, parietal, and occipital regions. The magnitude of the Stroop interference effect and task-related EEG activation was greater for older than younger adults when stimuli were integrated. This effect was significant over medial and lateral frontal and parietal, but not occipital, regions. In comparison, interference and EEG activation did not differ for younger and older adults when stimuli were separated. These findings support the hypothesis that the anterior attention system is more sensitive to the effects of increasing age than the posterior attention system.

[1]  A. Hartley,et al.  Adult age differences in the inhibition of return of visual attention. , 1995, Psychology and aging.

[2]  D. Balota,et al.  Stroop performance in healthy younger and older adults and in individuals with dementia of the Alzheimer's type. , 1996, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[3]  D. Madden,et al.  Adult age differences in the time course of visual attention. , 1990, Journal of gerontology.

[4]  R. Butler,et al.  Age differences in cerebral blood flow during rest and during mental activation measurements with and without monetary incentive. , 1985, Journal of gerontology.

[5]  H. Soininen,et al.  EEG in diagnostics and follow‐up of Alzheimer's disease , 1992, Acta neurologica Scandinavica. Supplementum.

[6]  H. Haug,et al.  Morphometry of the human cortex cerebri and corpus striatum during aging , 1991, Neurobiology of Aging.

[7]  E. Perret.  The left frontal lobe of man and the suppression of habitual responses in verbal categorical behaviour. , 1974, Neuropsychologia.

[8]  S. Folstein,et al.  "Mini-mental state". A practical method for grading the cognitive state of patients for the clinician. , 1975, Journal of psychiatric research.

[9]  S Corkin,et al.  Effectiveness of attentional cueing in older and younger adults. , 1985, Journal of gerontology.

[10]  M. Posner,et al.  The attention system of the human brain. , 1990, Annual review of neuroscience.

[11]  J. Cacioppo,et al.  Principles of psychophysiology : physical, social, and inferential elements , 1990 .

[12]  D. C. Bradford,et al.  Age-related decrements in Stroop Color Test performance. , 1984, Journal of clinical psychology.

[13]  M. Posner.  Attention in cognitive neuroscience: An overview. , 1995 .

[14]  P. Calabresi,et al.  Saccade preparation inhibits reorienting to recently attended locations. , 1989, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[15]  W. Hays.  Experimental Design: Procedures for the Behavioral Sciences. 2nd ed. , 1983 .

[16]  Marcia Grabowecky,et al.  Escape from linear time: Prefrontal cortex and conscious experience , 1995 .

[17]  A. Diamond,et al.  The Development and Neural Bases of Memory Functions as Indexed by the AB and Delayed Response Tasks in Human Infants and Infant Monkeys a , 1990, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

[18]  P. Goldman-Rakic,et al.  Regional changes of monoamines in cerebral cortex and subcortical structures of aging rhesus monkeys , 1981, Neuroscience.

[19]  R. L. Rogers,et al.  Cerebral blood flow changes in benign aging and cerebrovascular disease , 1984, Neurology.

[20]  Karl J. Friston,et al.  Investigations of the functional anatomy of attention using the stroop test , 1993, Neuropsychologia.

[21]  T. Gasser,et al.  Test-retest reliability of spectral parameters of the EEG. , 1985, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[22]  Jeffrey B. Henriques,et al.  Asymmetrical brain electrical activity discriminates between psychometrically-matched verbal and spatial cognitive tasks. , 1990, Psychophysiology.

[23]  G. Bernardi,et al.  Quantitative EEG evaluation in normal elderly subjects during mental processes: age-related changes. , 1994, The International journal of neuroscience.

[24]  A. Hartley,et al.  Evidence for the selective preservation of spatial selective attention in old age. , 1993, Psychology and aging.

[25]  S. Clarke,et al.  Self-generated happy and sad emotions in low and highly hypnotizable persons during waking and hypnosis: laterality and regional EEG activity differences. , 1996, International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology.

[26]  T. Murata,et al.  Quantitative EEG study on premature aging in adult down's syndrome , 1994, Biological Psychiatry.

[27]  Roger E. Kirk,et al.  Experimental design: Procedures for the behavioral sciences (3rd ed.). , 1995 .

[28]  R. West,et al.  An application of prefrontal cortex function theory to cognitive aging. , 1996, Psychological bulletin.

[29]  R. Kirk.  Experimental Design: Procedures for the Behavioral Sciences , 1970 .

[30]  Colin M. Macleod.  Half a century of research on the Stroop effect: an integrative review. , 1991, Psychological bulletin.

[31]  S. Bentin,et al.  Reduction in Regional Cerebral Blood Flow During Normal Aging in Man , 1980, Stroke.

[32]  W. Ray,et al.  EEG alpha activity reflects attentional demands, and beta activity reflects emotional and cognitive processes. , 1985, Science.

[33]  A. Hartley,et al.  Age differences and similarities in the effects of cues and prompts. , 1990, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[34]  M. Matousek,et al.  Serial quantitative electroencephalography. , 1979, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[35]  C. Müller,et al.  Brain Function in Old Age , 1979, Bayer-Symposium.

[36]  J. Born,et al.  Enhanced psychophysiological signs of attention after angiotensin‐converting enzyme inhibition by captopril , 1996 .

[37]  S Giaquinto,et al.  The EEG in the normal elderly: a contribution to the interpretation of aging and dementia. , 1986, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[38]  P. Goldman-Rakic,et al.  Common cortical and subcortical targets of the dorsolateral prefrontal and posterior parietal cortices in the rhesus monkey: evidence for a distributed neural network subserving spatially guided behavior , 1988, The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience.

[39]  E. Bizzi,et al.  The Cognitive Neurosciences , 1996 .

[40]  F H Duffy,et al.  Age‐related differences in brain electrical activity of healthy subjects , 1984, Annals of neurology.

[41]  Reduction in regional cerebral blood flow during normal aging is not limited to elderly subjects. , 1984, Monographs in neural sciences.

[42]  W. Hoyer,et al.  Age and the selectivity of visual information processing. , 1986, Psychology and aging.

[43]  C. Golden,et al.  Identification of brain disorders by the Stroop Color and Word Test. , 1976, Journal of clinical psychology.

[44]  M. Farah,et al.  A unified account of cognitive impairments following frontal lobe damage: the role of working memory in complex, organized behavior. , 1993, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[45]  P. Panek,et al.  Locus of the age-Stroop interference relationship. , 1984 .

[46]  J. Stroop.  Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions. , 1992 .

[47]  M. Raichle,et al.  The anterior cingulate cortex mediates processing selection in the Stroop attentional conflict paradigm. , 1990, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[48]  M. Posner,et al.  Inhibition of return : Neural basis and function , 1985 .

[49]  W. Obrist.  Electroencephalographic Changes in Normal Aging and Dementia , 1979 .