Event-related potentials recorded from young and old adults during a memory retrieval task

The Event-Related Brain Potential as an Index of Information Processing and Cognitive Activity: A Program of Basic Research.

“…Rather, the data are interpreted as supporting an assertion about the nature of the deficit in a manner that specifies directions for further study. A similar use of the theory presented by Donchin and associates to account for variance in P300 latency has been made by Ford et al (1979), who inferred from an analysis of the P300 latency in a test of short term memory that elderly subjects are slowed, in such a test, by motor rather than by cognitive factors.…”

“…P300 is determined by the amount of time required to tested this recognize and evaluate a stimulus has been reported hypothesis by requiring subjects to distinguish beby several investigators who have employed Sterntween two stimuli under both speed and accuracy berg 's ( 1966, 19 6 9a, 1969b) additive-factors methinstructions. In one experimental condition, subjects odology (Ford, Mohs, Pfefferbaum, & Kopell, 1980; were required to discriminate between two names, Ford, Roth, Mohs, Hopkins, & Kopell, 1979; "Nancy" and "David," presented on a CRT (with Gomer, Spicuz:a, & O'Donnell, 1976;Kramer, Fisk, relative frequencies of 20% and 80%, respectively). In & Schneider, 1983).…”

“…This interval, the "latency" of P300, is of particular interest because it seems to be useful as a tool in mental chronometry. There is considerable evidence that the latency of P300 increases with age (Ford et al, 1979;Pfefferbaum et al, 198Ca, 1984a;Brown et al, 1983;Mullis et al, 1984;Picton et al, 1984). Goodin et al (1978a,b) provided additional support for this thesis.…”

“…It so happens that increases in P300 latency do tend to occur in association with other pathologies (Roth et al, 1979; ... -Braun et al, 1983). Furthermore, conflicting results have been…”

“…The second condition used the same memory set for a block of trials (hereafter referred to as the fixed condition). Previous ERP Sternberg studies (e.g., Roth et al, 1975;Roth et al 1977; Adam et al, 1978;Ford et al, 1979;Pfefferbaum et al, 1980;Ford et . al., 1982) have failed to observe the underadditive effects of memory set size *" and response type on P300 latency; however, all of these experiments employed a varied memory set condition, while Strayer et al, (1984) used a fixed P.…”