We explored neural processing differences associated with aging across four cognitive functions. In addition to ERP analysis, we included task-related microstate analyses, which identified stable states of neural activity across the scalp over time, to explore whole-head neural activation differences. Younger and older adults (YA, OA) completed face perception (N170), word-pair judgment (N400), visual oddball (P3), and flanker (ERN) tasks. Age-related effects differed across tasks. Despite age-related delayed latencies, N170 ERP and microstate analyses indicated no age-related differences in amplitudes or microstates. However, age-related condition differences were found for P3 and N00 amplitudes and scalp topographies: smaller condition differences were found for in OAs as well as broader centroparietal scalp distributions. Age group comparisons for the ERN revealed similar focal frontocentral activation loci, but differential activation patterns. Our findings of differential age effects across tasks are most consistent with the STAC-r framework which proposes that age-related effects differ depending on the resources available and the kinds of processing and cognitive load required of various tasks.

One of the most popular and influential measures of cognitive control is the antisaccade task where participants identify briefly presented and subsequently masked targets at a peripheral location. Prior to mask presentation, there is a cue at an opposing location that must be inhibited. Performance reflects the ability to inhibit We assess the degree to which antisaccade accuracy measure reflects an independent inbhibition component vs. a more generic processing-speed component by comparing performance to that in a prosaccade accuracy condition. Target durations in both tasks are adjusted with an adaptive 2-down/1-up staircase to produce constant accuracies. Individual target durations in the antisaccade condition are highly correlated to those in the prosaccade condition (r = .83). With a series of hierarchical models, we show there is but a single source of systemic variation across the conditions. We conclude that individual variation in inhibition in the antisaccade task is due to individual variation in processing speed.

One of the most popular measures of cognitive control is the antisaccade task where briefly presented and subsequently masked targets at a peripheral location are identified. Prior to mask presentation, there is a cue at an opposing location that must be inhibited. We assess the degree to which antisaccade accuracy measure reflects cognitive control vs. processing speed by comparing performance to that in a prosaccade accuracy condition. Target durations in both tasks are adjusted with an adaptive 2-down/1-up staircase to produce constant accuracies. Individual target durations in the antisaccade condition are highly correlated to those in the prosaccade condition (r=.83). With a series of hierarchical models, we show there is but a single source of systemic variation across the conditions---a factor of processing speed. We conclude that the antisaccade performance indexes processing speed rather than cognitive control.

Does aging affect neural processing similarly across cognitive tasks or does it target specific cognitive processing mechanisms? Frequent findings of increased latency and reduced amplitude in older adults suggest the possibility of a general mechanism. However, no study has tested this hypothesis directly by comparing processing within the same individuals across multiple tasks. In our study, older (ages 60-85) and younger (ages 18-30) adults participated in four tasks (CORE; Kappenman et al., 2020) while EEG was collected: face processing (N170; one-back for faces, cars, scrambled faces, and scrambled cars), attention and categorization (P3; visual odd-ball), semantic processing (N400; word-pair semantic judgment), and error processing (ERN; flanker task). Each group had 17 participants with complete data across all tasks. Results showed differential age-related condition effects for different tasks. For the N170, older and younger adults showed similar amplitude differences between faces and cars at P07/P08 electrodes. For the ERN, no significant age-related differences were found for error versus correct response amplitude differences at central electrodes. In contrast, age-related differences were found for the P3 and N400 ERPs at centroparietal electrodes in terms of smaller condition amplitude differences and less focal distributions of neural responses. Specifically, older adult amplitudes differed from younger adults for the target, but not the standard, condition (P3) and for the related, but not the unrelated, word-pair conditions (N400). An age by task interaction of standardized difference wave amplitudes confirmed significant age-group differences for the P3 and N400, but not for the N170 and ERN. Thus, aging does not affect neural processing similarly across these four cognitive tasks within individuals.

Memorializes Leslie Rescorla (1945-2020). Rescorla, Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Class of 1897 Professor of Science Emeritus at Bryn Mawr College, passed away in Havertown, PA on October 12, 2020. Rescorla, who was born in Washington, DC on August 15, 1945, came to Bryn Mawr in 1985; where she taught in the Psychology Department and directed the College's Phebe Anna Thorne School and, until 2018, its Child study Institute. For many years she chaired the department and directed its Clinical Developmental Psychology doctoral program. She supervised over 70 undergraduate senior research projects, 26 MA theses, and 45 PhD dissertations, and in 2002 received the College's McPherson Prize for excellence in teaching, scholarship, and service to the community. Leslie majored in Modern European History at Radcliffe College, graduating magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1967 and earned her MA in Economic History at the London School of Economics in 1968. She received a PhD in Child Development and Clinical Psychology from Yale in 1976 and completed her clinical training at Yale, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and the Philadelphia Child Guidance Center. She remained a licensed clinical and school psychologist throughout her career and was long-time director of Bryn Mawr's School Psychologist Certification program. Leslie's research focused on late development of language in children. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The purpose of this study was to test the feasibility and effectiveness of an adapted 8-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program for elders in a continuing care community. This mixed-methods study used both quantitative and qualitative measures. A randomized waitlist control design was used for the quantitative aspect of the study. Thirty-nine elderly were randomized to MBSR (n = 20) or a waitlist control group (n = 19), mean age was 82 years. Both groups completed pre-post measures of health-related quality of life, acceptance and psychological flexibility, facets of mindfulness, self-compassion, and psychological distress. A subset of MBSR participants completed qualitative interviews. MBSR participants showed significantly greater improvement in acceptance and psychological flexibility and in role limitations due to physical health. In the qualitative interviews, MBSR participants reported increased awareness, less judgment, and greater self-compassion. Study results demonstrate the feasibility and potential effectiveness of an adapted MBSR program in promoting mind-body health for elders.

The effects of aging and IQ on performance were examined in 4 memory tasks: item recognition, associative recognition, cued recall, and free recall. For item and associative recognition, accuracy and the response time (RT) distributions for correct and error responses were explained by Ratcliff's (1978) diffusion model at the level of individual participants. The values of the components of processing identified by the model for the recognition tasks, as well as accuracy for cued and free recall, were compared across levels of IQ (ranging from 85 to 140) and age (college age, 60-74 years old, and 75-90 years old). IQ had large effects on drift rate in recognition and recall performance, except for the oldest participants with some measures near floor. Drift rates in the recognition tasks, accuracy in recall, and IQ all correlated strongly. However, there was a small decline in drift rates for item recognition and a large decline for associative recognition and cued recall accuracy (70%). In contrast, there were large effects of age on boundary separation and nondecision time (which correlated across tasks) but small effects of IQ. The implications of these results for single- and dual-process models of item recognition are discussed, and it is concluded that models that deal with both RTs and accuracy are subject to many more constraints than are models that deal with only one of these measures. Overall, the results of the study show a complicated but interpretable pattern of interactions that present important targets for modeling.

The effects of aging and IQ on performance were examined in three two-choice tasks: numerosity discrimination, recognition memory, and lexical decision. The experimental data, accuracy, correct and error response times, and response time distributions, were well explained by Ratcliff's (1978) diffusion model. The components of processing identified by the model were compared across levels of IQ (ranging from 83 to 146) and age (college students, 60-74, and 75-90 year olds). Declines in performance with age were not significantly different for low compared to high IQ subjects. IQ but not age had large effects on the quality of the evidence that was obtained from a stimulus or memory, that is, the evidence upon which decisions were based. Applying the model to individual subjects, the components of processing identified by the model for individuals correlated across tasks. In addition, the model's predictions and the data were examined for the "worst performance rule", the finding that age and IQ have larger effects on slower responses than faster responses.

We examined age-related differences in susceptibility to fluency-based memory illusions. The results from 2 experiments, in which 2 different methods were used to enhance the fluency of recognition test items, revealed that older and young adults did not differ significantly in terms of their overall susceptibility to this type of memory illusion. Older and young adults were also similar in that perceptual fluency did not influence recognition memory responses when there was a mismatch in the sensory modality of the study and test phases. Likewise, a more conceptual fluency manipulation influenced recognition memory responses in both older and young adults regardless of the match in modality. Overall, the results indicate that older adults may not be more vulnerable than young adults to fluency-based illusions of recognition memory. Moreover, young and older adults appear to be comparable in their sensitivity to factors that modulate the influence of fluency on recognition decisions.

The present study investigated age-related differences in the locus of the emotional enhancement effect in recognition memory. Younger and older adults studied an emotion-heterogeneous list followed by a forced choice recognition memory test. Luce’s (1963) similarity choice model was used to assess whether emotional valence impacts memory sensitivity or response bias. Results revealed that the emotional enhancement effect in both age groups was due to a more liberal response bias for emotional words. However, the pattern of bias differed, with younger adults more willing to classify negative words as old and older adults more willing to classify positive words as old. The results challenge the conclusion that emotional words are more memorable than neutral words.

Previous research by M. W. Prull, L. L. Light, M. E. Collett, and R. F. Kennison (1998) has shown that older adults are not susceptible to a memory illusion referred to as the revelation effect. The authors examined the robustness of Prull et al.'s findings by having participants solve a word fragment (Experiment 1) or an anagram (Experiment 2) prior to the recognition memory decision. In both experiments, younger and older adults showed a reliable revelation effect. These results simultaneously challenge both the conclusion that older adults are not vulnerable to the revelation effect and the conclusion that aging is associated with increasing susceptibility to memory illusions.

The effects of aging on simple 2-choice decision making was investigated with the diffusion model (R. Ratcliff, 1978). Data for 75- to 90-year-olds were collected and compared with previous data from 60- to 75-year-olds and college students for 5 tasks: a signal detection-like task, letter and brightness discrimination with masking, recognition memory, and lexical decision. The model fit the data well and therefore allows components of processing to be examined as a function of age. Compared with decision-making processes in college students, decision criteria and nondecision components of processing increased with participants' age. However, the quality of the evidence on which decisions were based decreased with age only for letter and brightness discrimination.

The effects of aging on performance were examined in signal detection, letter discrimination, brightness discrimination, and recognition memory, with each subject tested on all four tasks. Ratcliff's (1978) diffusion model was fit to the data for each subject for each task, and it provided a good account of accuracy and the distributions of correct and error response times. The model's analysis of the components of processing showed that aging had three main effects: The nondecision components of processing were slower and the decision criteria were more conservative for 60- to 74-year-old and 75- to 85-year-old subjects than for college students, but the quality of the evidence on which decisions were based was as good for the older subjects as for college students on some of the tasks. Individual differences among subjects in components of processing tended to be preserved across the tasks, as was shown by strong correlations across the tasks in the parameters of the model that represent the components of processing. For example, if the evidence on which a subject's decisions were based was good in one task, it tended to be good in all four tasks.

Practice effects were examined in a masked letter discrimination task and a masked brightness discrimination task for college-age and 60- to 75-year-old subjects. The diffusion model (Ratcliff, 1978) was fit to the response time and accuracy data and used to extract estimates of components of processing from the data. Relative to young subjects, the older subjects began the experiments with slower and less accurate performance; however, across sessions their accuracy improved because the quality of the information on which their decisions were based improved, and this, along with reduced decision criteria, led to shorter response times. For the brightness, but not the letter, discrimination task, the older subjects' performance matched that of the younger group by the end of 4 sessions, except that their nondecision components of processing were slightly slower. These analyses illustrate how a well-specified model can provide a unified view of multiple aspects of data that are often interpreted separately.

The effects of aging on response time (RT) are examined in 2 lexical-decision experiments with young and older subjects (age 60-75). The results show that the older subjects were slower than the young subjects, but more accurate. R. Ratcliff s (1978) diffusion model provided a good account of RTs, their distributions, and response accuracy. The fits show an 80-100-ms slowing of the nondecision components of RT for older subjects relative to young subjects and more conservative decision criterion settings for older subjects than for young subjects. The rates of accumulation of evidence were not significantly different for older compared with young subjects (less than 2% and 5% higher for older subjects relative to young subjects in the 2 experiments).

The effects of aging on response time were examined in a recognition memory experiment with young, college age subjects and older, 60–75 year old subjects. The older subjects were slower than the young subjects but almost as accurate. Ratcliff’s (1978) diffusion model was fit to the data and it provided a good account of response times, their distributions, and accuracy values. The fits showed a 100ms slowing of the nondecision components of response time for older subjects relative to young subjects, and roughly equal response criteria settings with accuracy instructions but more conservative settings for the older subjects with speed instructions. In the diffusion model, the decision process is driven by the rate of accumulation of evidence from the stimulus. We found that the rate of accumulation for older subjects was a non-significant 7% lower than the rate for young subjects, indicating that the output from recognition memory entering the decision process was not significantly worse for the older subjects. The results are compared to those obtained from letter discrimination, brightness discrimination, and signal detection-like tasks.

The effects of aging on accuracy and response time were examined in a letter discrimination experiment with young and older subjects. Results showed that older subjects (ages 60-75) were generally slower and less accurate than young subjects. R. Ratcliff's (1978) diffusion model was fit to the data, and it provided a good account of response times, their distributions, and response accuracy. The results produce similar age effects on the nondecision components of response time (about 50 ms slowing) and the response criteria (more conservative settings) to those from R. Ratcliff, A. Thapar, and G. McKoon (2001), but also show a reduced rate of accumulation of evidence for older subjects. The model-based approach has the advantage of allowing the separation of aging effects on different components of processing.