Does performance monitoring in younger and older adults change with learning?
Wilwer, M., Simon, K., Endrass, T., & Kathmann, N.
The monitoring of errors can be investigated using the error-related
negativity (ERN), a component of the event-related brain potential.
This study examined if and how error processing changes with learning
and differs in younger and older adults. In a choice reaction time task
participants learned to map four response alternatives onto eight
visually presented letter stimuli by trial and error, using feedback
information. As expected, older adults learned worse but did not react
significantly slower than younger adults. In addition to the
response-locked ERN, psychophysiological data also revealed a
negativity associated with correct responses (correct-related
negativity, CRN). At the beginning of the learning task, ERN and CRN
had comparably large amplitudes in both age groups. As learning
progressed, an increasing difference between these response
negativities became apparent in younger adults, due to attenuated CRN
and increased ERN amplitudes. However, ERN and CRN amplitudes did not
change in older adults during the whole task. Moreover and in contrast
to prior findings, ERN amplitudes were not reduced in older
participants. These results indicate that at the beginning of the
learning process response correctness did not affect performance
monitoring. With advanced learning and less uncertainty about the
accuracy of responses, response monitoring and associated
fronto-central negativities became error specific in younger adults.
This dissociation between correct and incorrect responses could not be
observed in older adults possibly due to high uncertainty throughout
the experiment.
Abstract für CNS Meeting 2006