Age-related top-down suppression deficit in the early stages of cortical visual memory processing.

ABSTRACT: In this study, electroencephalography (EEG) was used to examine the relationship between two leading hypotheses of cognitive aging, the inhibitory deficit and the processing speed hypothesis. We show that older adults exhibit a selective deficit in suppressing task-irrelevant information during visual working memory encoding, but only in the early stages of visual processing. Thus, the employment of suppressive mechanisms are not abolished with aging but rather delayed in time, revealing a decline in processing speed that is selective for the inhibition of irrelevant information. EEG spectral analysis of signals from frontal regions suggests that this results from excessive attention to distracting information early in the time course of viewing irrelevant stimuli. Subdividing the older po

SUBMITTER: Gazzaley A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2529045 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature