Age affects the adjustment of cognitive control after a conflict: evidence from the bivalency effect

Abstract

Age affects cognitive control. When facing a conflict, older adults are less able to activate goal-relevant information and inhibit irrelevant information. However, cognitive control also affects the events after a conflict. The purpose of this study was to determine whether age affects the adjustment of cognitive control following a conflict. To this end, we investigated the bivalency effect, that is, the performance slowing occurring after the conflict induced by bivalent stimuli (i.e., stimuli with features for two tasks). In two experiments, we tested young adults (aged 20–30) and older adults (aged 65–85) in a paradigm requiring alternations between three tasks, with bivalent stimuli occasionally occurring on one task. The young adults showed a slowing for all trials following bivalent stimuli. This indicates a widespread and long-lasting bivalency effect, replicating previous findings. In contrast, the older adults showed a more specific and shorter-lived slowing. Thus, age affects the adjustment of cognitive control following a conflict.

Keywords:

• older adults
• bivalent stimuli
• incongruent stimuli
• task switching
• episodic context binding

Acknowledgments

We thank Yannik Faes, Simone Ingold, Anja Lanz, Leonie Müller, Martina Studer, and Lea Waldis for testing the participants of Experiment 1, and Inci Demir and Stefan Walter for testing the participants of Experiment 2. We also thank Stefan Walter for helpful comments on an earlier version.