Exploring Effects of Age on Conflict Processing in the Light of Practice in a Large-Scale Dataset

Figures & data

Figure 1. Trial of the Color Match Game. The meaning of the left word (always displayed in black) and both meaning and display color of the right word (displayed in red in this example) change independently between trials. A color version of this figure is available in the online version.

Table 1. Trial Types in the Color Match Game.

	Example			Match
Trial type	Reference meaning	Target color	Target meaning	Color	Meaning	Correct response
1	Red	Red	Red	+	+	“Yes”
2	Red	Red	Blue	+	-	“Yes
3	Red	Red	Red	-	+	“No”
4a	Red	Blue	Yellow	-	-	“No”
4b	Red	Blue	Blue	-	-	“No”

Note. Trial types in the color match game are defined by the meaning of the reference word and the meaning and color of the target word. The meaning of the reference word can match the meaning of the target word and/or the color of the target word. Responses refer to the matching of the meaning of the reference word and the color of the target word.

Table 2. Sample Size.

Age	Users	Practice	Games	Trials
(20,30]	200	low	3085	115371
		intermediate	3185	157905
		high	2911	162244
(30,40]	200	low	3313	115331
		intermediate	3299	158326
		high	2946	160921
(40,50]	200	low	3852	115427
		intermediate	3734	157785
		high	2888	144660
(50,60]	200	low	4010	115434
		intermediate	3971	159477
		high	2835	137133
(60,70]	200	low	4897	115406
		intermediate	4409	147588
		high	1985	87185
(70,80]	200	low	5846	115208
		intermediate	4501	132218
		high	1159	46365
Total	1200		60655	2343984

Note. Number of users, games, and trials per age and practice group in the final dataset.

Figure 2. Summary Statistics for Response Times Across Age Groups, Practice Levels and Trial Types. Error bars indicate 95 percent confidence intervals.

Figure 3. Summary Statistics for Accuracies Across Age Groups, Practice Levels and Trial Types. Error bars indicate 95 percent confidence intervals.

Figure 4. Individual Congruency Effects per Age Group and Practice Level.

Table 3. Mean RT, Congruency Effect (SD in Parentheses) and Proportional Congruency Effect by Practice Level and Age Group.

	Mean RT			Congruency effect			Proportional congruency effect
Age	low	intermediate	high	low	intermediate	high	low	intermediate	high
(20,30]	1131 (395)	853 (212)	769 (152)	196 (181)	97 (104)	68 (75)	0.17	0.11	0.09
(30,40]	1236 (369)	888 (232)	776 (147)	243 (165)	110 (102)	66 (60)	0.20	0.12	0.09
(40,50]	1466 (458)	1019 (252)	871 (150)	342 (240)	162 (136)	98 (75)	0.23	0.16	0.11
(50,60]	1547 (423)	1086 (257)	931 (190)	396 (260)	195 (143)	122 (110)	0.26	0.18	0.13
(60,70]	1971 (652)	1392 (459)	1060 (211)	567 (387)	319 (287)	169 (121)	0.29	0.23	0.16
(70,80]	2428 (810)	1686 (564)	1180 (241)	765 (494)	461 (349)	210 (160)	0.32	0.27	0.18

Note. RT-(difference)s are reported in ms. “Low,” “intermediate,” and “high” refer to the practice level.

Figure 5. Individual Congruency Effects on Accuracies per Age Group and Practice Level.

Table 4. Mean Congruency Effect on Accuracy ($\mathit{SD}$ in Parentheses) by Age Group and Practice Level.

	Practice level
Age	low	intermediate	high
(20,30]	0.11 (0.11)	0.08 (0.08)	0.07 (0.08)
(30,40]	0.11 (0.09)	0.07 (0.07)	0.06 (0.05)
(40,50]	0.17 (0.13)	0.09 (0.09)	0.07 (0.07)
(50,60]	0.18 (0.13)	0.09 (0.10)	0.07 (0.09)
(60,70]	0.26 (0.18)	0.14 (0.14)	0.07 (0.07)
(70,80]	0.37 (0.21)	0.22 (0.19)	0.12 (0.14)

Figure 6. Delta Plots per Age Group and Practice Level.

Table 5. Results of Fitting the Delta Plot with a Linear Function with Age Group and Practice Level as Covariates.

Predictor	$\mathit{b}$	95% CI	$\mathit{t}$	$\mathit{df}$	$\mathit{p}$
Intercept	167.94	[162.42, 173.46]	59.69	1792	<.001
Mean RT gmc	0.33	[0.31, 0.36]	24.99	1792	<.001
Age num	103.91	[102.09, 105.74]	111.82	1792	<.001
Practice num	−67.18	[−71.46, −62.91]	−30.83	1792	<.001
Mean RT gmc $\times$ Age num	−0.03	[−0.04, −0.03]	−9.15	1792	<.001
Mean RT gmc $\times$ Practice num	−0.06	[−0.08, −0.03]	−3.77	1792	<.001
Age num $\times$ Practice num	−42.41	[−43.83, −41.00]	−58.92	1792	<.001
Mean RT gmc $\times$ Age num $\times$ Practice num	0.04	[0.03, 0.05]	9.94	1792	<.001

Note. Mean RTs are group mean centered (“gmc”). Age group and practice level are treated as numeric variables (“num”) with 0 indicating the lowest group, that is, “low” and “(20, 30],” respectively.

Figure 7. Lorenz-Interference Plots by Age Group and Practice Level. The dashed line marks the hypothetical uniform distribution of the interference over the RT distribution. A color version of this figure is available in the online version.

Figure 8. Interference Distribution Index (IDI) as a Function of Age Group and Practice Level. The IDI indicates the latency of the conflict on a scale from 0 to 1. Smaller IDIs indicate a larger congruency effect at longer RTs. Depicted are the means of 1000 bootstrap samples and the respective 95 percent confidence intervals.