General Slowing and Education Mediate Task Switching Performance Across the Life-Span

Abstract

Objective: This study considered the potential role of both protective factors (cognitive reserve, CR) and adverse ones (general slowing) in modulating cognitive flexibility in the adult life-span.Method: Ninety-eight individuals performed a task-switching (TS) paradigm in which we adopted a manipulation concerning the timing between the cue and the target. Working memory demands were minimized by using transparent cues. Additionally, indices of cognitive integrity, depression, processing speed and different CR dimensions were collected and used in linear models accounting for TS performance under the different time constraints.Results: The main results showed similar mixing costs and higher switching costs in older adults, with an overall age-dependent effect of general slowing on these costs. The link between processing speed and TS performance was attenuated when participants had more time to prepare. Among the different CR indices, formal education only was associated with reduced switch costs under time pressure.Discussion: Even though CR is often operationalized as a unitary construct, the present research confirms the benefits of using tools designed to distinguish between different CR dimensions. Furthermore, our results provide empirical support to the assumption that processing speed influence on executive performance depends on time constraints. Finally, it is suggested that whether age differences appear in terms of switch or mixing costs depends on working memory demands (which were low in our tasks with transparent cues).

Age Differences in the Tradeoff between Proactive and Reactive Cognitive Control in Emotional Information Processing

“…In addition, older adults generally have longer reaction times than younger adults in the processing of different emotional information, a result that is consistent with the generalized slowing hypothesis, which states that processing slows down with healthy aging [ 67 , 68 ]. At the same time, older adults did not show a cognitive control pattern similar to the error rate, i.e., in the emotional-neutral condition, the youth had significantly higher error rates than older adults, yet this pattern was not replicated in response times, but rather showed a pattern of generally higher response times for older adults than youth, which may reflect a tradeoff between speed and accuracy in which older adults forgo fast responses in order to ensure higher accuracy.…”

Processing Speed Predicts Mean Performance in Task-Switching but Not Task-Switching Cost

“…Classical studies, based on factor analyses, suggest that many cognitive abilities may be positively correlated to each other in a hierarchical fashion (e.g., Carroll, 1993;Johnson & Bouchard, 2007;Gaemmerer, Keith, & Reynolds, 2020). More recent studies have looked at trade-offs between cognitive abilities (Colzato, Hommel & Beste, 2021;Hills & Hertwig, 2011 The finding that participants who reached higher education levels showed smaller switching costs is consistent with previous research suggesting that longer formal education is associated with smaller task-switching costs (Moretti et al, 2018) and better cognitive performance across a range of neuropsychological tests (Rimkus et al, 2018).…”

“…Since performing in pattern comparison tasks requires a certain degree of “task-switching” and performance in task-switching requires a certain degree of “pattern comparison,” performances in these tasks may be correlated. Therefore, processing speed may account for task-switching ability in these tasks (i.e., Moretti et al, 2018; Salthouse et al, 1998; Wasylyshyn, 2007).…”

Brain oscillatory activity associated with switch and mixing costs during reactive control

“…Support for the dissociation between the processes underlying switch and mixing costs comes from different lines of evidence. For example, from a normal aging perspective, older adults usually show larger mixing costs but similar switch costs with respect to their younger counterparts (e.g., Kray & Lindenberger, 2000; Mayr, 2001; Moretti, Semenza, & Vallesi, 2018). At the neural level, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI; Braver et al., 2003) and resting‐state electroencephalographic (EEG) studies (Ambrosini & Vallesi, 2016) link switch and mixing costs to the activity of left‐lateralized and right‐lateralized prefrontal areas, respectively.…”