Space Fortress game training and executive control in older adults: a pilot intervention

We investigated the feasibility of using the Space Fortress (SF) game, a complex video game originally developed to study complex skill acquisition in young adults, to improve executive control processes in cognitively healthy older adults. The study protocol consisted of 36 one-hour game play sessions over 3 months with cognitive evaluations before and after, and a follow-up evaluation at 6 months. Sixty participants were randomized to one of three conditions: Emphasis Change (EC)--elders were instructed to concentrate on playing the entire game but place particular emphasis on a specific aspect of game play in each particular game; Active Control (AC)--game play with standard instructions; Passive Control (PC)--evaluation sessions without game play. Primary outcome measures were obtained from five tasks, presumably tapping executive control processes. A total of 54 older adults completed the study protocol. One measure of executive control, WAIS-III letter-number sequencing, showed improvement in performance from pre- to post-evaluations in the EC condition, but not in the other two conditions. These initial findings are modest but encouraging. Future SF interventions need to carefully consider increasing the duration and or the intensity of the intervention by providing at-home game training, reducing the motor demands of the game, and selecting appropriate outcome measures.     

Effects of interactive physical-activity video-game training on physical and cognitive function in older adults

The purpose of the present study was to assess the potential of exergame training based on physically simulated sport play as a mode of physical activity that could have cognitive benefits for older adults. If exergame play has the cognitive benefits of conventional physical activity and also has the intrinsic attractiveness of video games, then it might be a very effective way to induce desirable lifestyle changes in older adults. To examine this issue, the authors developed an active video game training program using a pretest-training-posttest design comparing an experimental group (24 × 1 hr of training) with a control group without treatment. Participants completed a battery of neuropsychological tests, assessing executive control, visuospatial functions, and processing speed, to measure the cognitive impact of the program. They were also given a battery of functional fitness tests to measure the physical impact of the program. The trainees improved significantly in measures of game performance. They also improved significantly more than the control participants in measures of physical function and cognitive measures of executive control and processing speed, but not on visuospatial measures. It was encouraging to observe that, engagement in physically simulated sport games yielded benefits to cognitive and physical skills that are directly involved in functional abilities older adults need in everyday living (e.g., Hultsch, Hertzog, Small, & Dixon, 1999).     

Age-Related Changes in Executive Function: An Event-Related Potential (ERP) Investigation of Task-Switching

ABSTRACT

Older adults have difficulty when executive control must be brought on line to coordinate ongoing behavior. To assess age-related alterations in executive processing, task-switching performance and event-related potential (ERP) activity were compared in young and older adults on switch, post-switch, pre-switch, and no-switch trials, ordered in demand for executive processes from greatest to least. In stimulus-locked averages for young adults, only switch trials elicited fronto-central P3 components, indicative of task-set attentional reallocation, whereas in older adults, three of the four trial types evinced frontal potentials. In response-locked averages, the amplitude of a medial frontal negativity (MFN), a component reflecting conflict monitoring and detection, increased as a function of executive demands in the ERPs of the young but not those of the older adults. These data suggest altered executive processing in older adults resulting in persistent recruitment of prefrontal processes for conditions that do not require them in the young.     

Executive Functions and Mental Attentional Capacity in Preschoolers

ABSTRACT

The structure of executive functions in preschoolers is controversial. Miyake and colleagues found that, in adults, inhibition, shifting, and updating are correlated but distinguishable processes; this finding was sometimes replicated with schoolchildren. Based on schoolchildren data, Im-Bolter, Johnson, and Pascual-Leone proposed a four-component model, with mental attentional capacity and inhibition as basic resources, and shifting and updating as executive processes that partly rely on those resources. Studies on preschoolers propose either a single factor or two factors. We tested 118 children (36 to 73 months old) using measures of mental attentional capacity (Mr. Cucumber, Direction Following Task, and Backward Word Span), inhibition (Bear/Dragon and Day-Night Stroop), shifting (Dimensional Change Card Sort) and updating (Magic House). Confirmatory factor analyzes showed that the best-fitting model comprises two highly correlated factors – one loading the mental attentional capacity measures, the other loading inhibition, shifting, and updating measures. Performance in inhibition, shifting, and updating tasks showed qualitative changes with increasing attentional capacity. In preschoolers, shifting and updating seem to emerge tied to inhibition – but only when sufficient capacity enables children to perform executive control tasks. This seems consistent with Im-Bolter’s et al.’s proposal of two basic resources.     

Regional differences in brain volume predict the acquisition of skill in a complex real-time strategy videogame

Previous studies have found that differences in brain volume among older adults predict performance in laboratory tasks of executive control, memory, and motor learning. In the present study we asked whether regional differences in brain volume as assessed by the application of a voxel-based morphometry technique on high resolution MRI would also be useful in predicting the acquisition of skill in complex tasks, such as strategy-based video games. Twenty older adults were trained for over 20 h to play Rise of Nations, a complex real-time strategy game. These adults showed substantial improvements over the training period in game performance. MRI scans obtained prior to training revealed that the volume of a number of brain regions, which have been previously associated with subsets of the trained skills, predicted a substantial amount of variance in learning on the complex game. Thus, regional differences in brain volume can predict learning in complex tasks that entail the use of a variety of perceptual, cognitive and motor processes.     

Executive process training in young and old adults

There is a growing body of research on the modifiability of executive functions in different stages of life. Previous studies demonstrate robust training effects but limited transfer in younger and particularly in older adults. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether a theoretically derived intervention for executive functioning, addressing several basic processes (updating, shifting, and inhibition), can induce transfer effects in early and late adulthood. Fifty-nine healthy adults, 29 young and 30 older adults, were randomly assigned to either training or no-contact control groups. The training groups received 15 sessions of executive process training for about 45 min/session during 5 weeks. A test battery including a criterion task and near, intermediate, and far transfer tasks was administered before and after training. Results showed pronounced age-equivalent gains on the criterion task. Near transfer was seen to non-trained updating and inhibition tasks for the young and older trained participants. However, only the young adults showed intermediate transfer to two complex working memory tasks. No far transfer effects were seen for either age group. These findings provide additional evidence for age-related constraints in the ability to generalize acquired executive skills, and specifically show that training of multiple executive processes is not sufficient to foster transfer beyond the very near in older adults.     

La pratique répétée du Trail Making Test réduit les différences liées à l’âge sur la performance à ce test

Age-related impairment in executive functioning has been found to explain partially the decrease of cognitive performance with aging. However, the practice of an executive test can improve performance to this test. In the present study, we investigated first how the practice of the Trail Making Test (TMT, flexibility test) may influence the age-related deficit to the performance in this test and then how the performance tended to improve, and at which pace, through the practice of this executive test. Two age groups of participants (young and older adults) practiced the TMT and were compared to two control groups (i.e., no practice between pre- and post-test). The practice groups’ scores were obtained at the end of each session. Globally, the results showed an improvement of performance (1) greater in the practice groups than in the control groups and (2) in practice groups, greater in older adults than in younger ones. Both younger and older adults progressed during the early practice sessions but the younger ones reached their optimal level earlier than the older adults who continued to improve over the sessions. These results could have a major impact on adapting cognitive stimulation programs to individual's characteristics such as age.     

Part set cuing in older adults: further evidence of intact forgetting in aging

The aim of this study was to look at the effect of aging on part set cuing while equating for baseline performance in episodic memory. Younger and older participants listened to three different word lists, each containing 24 words relating to a particular category. During recall, 0, 33, or 66% of the items presented in the learning phase were re-presented as cues. The results showed that recall of the never cued items was equally impaired by the presence of cues in younger and older adults, thus showing equivalent part set cuing effects in both groups. These results parallel previous findings showing equivalent inhibitory effects in younger and older adults with tasks that do not require executive control and provide additional support to previous studies challenging the view that frontal/executive processes play a major role in part set cuing.     

Lapses of intention and performance variability reveal age-related increases in fluctuations of executive control

We examine the hypothesis that the efficiency of executive control processes is less stable over time in older than younger adults. An age-related decrease in the efficiency of executive control should result in an increase in performance variability in task conditions requiring the recruitment of executive control processes and not in task conditions requiring minimal involvement of executive control. Performance variability was similar for younger and older adults in task conditions requiring minimal executive control and greater for older than younger adults in task conditions requiring executive control. These and other data are consistent with the proposal that aging is associated with a decrease in the stability of executive control over time.     

Age-related changes in executive function: an event-related potential (ERP) investigation of task-switching

Older adults have difficulty when executive control must be brought on line to coordinate ongoing behavior. To assess age-related alterations in executive processing, task-switching performance and event-related potential (ERP) activity were compared in young and older adults on switch, post-switch, pre-switch, and no-switch trials, ordered in demand for executive processes from greatest to least. In stimulus-locked averages for young adults, only switch trials elicited fronto-central P3 components, indicative of task-set attentional reallocation, whereas in older adults, three of the four trial types evinced frontal potentials. In response-locked averages, the amplitude of a medial frontal negativity (MFN), a component reflecting conflict monitoring and detection, increased as a function of executive demands in the ERPs of the young but not those of the older adults. These data suggest altered executive processing in older adults resulting in persistent recruitment of prefrontal processes for conditions that do not require them in the young.     

ERP Correlates of Effortful Control in Children with Varying Levels of ADHD Symptoms

As effortful control (EC), the self-regulation aspect of temperament, has been argued to play a key role in the normal and psychopathological course of development, research adding to the construct validity of EC is needed. In the current study, interrelations between the temperament construct of EC and the efficiency of the executive attention network, argued to underlie EC, were investigated, using event-related potentials (ERPs). In general, children scoring low on EC questionnaires made more errors of commission in the Go/No-Go task and showed smaller No-Go N2 or No-Go P3 amplitudes, two ERP components related to the executive attention network. The two EC scales (Effortful Control Scale and Attentional Control Scale), used in the current study, were differentially related to the outcome, indicating that they may measure different constructs. No-Go P3 amplitude was noted to be associated more strongly with EC than No-Go N2 amplitude. EC was found to be implicated in Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) symptomatology, as children scoring high on ADHD symptoms scored low on EC questionnaires, made more errors of commission, and showed smaller No-Go P3 amplitudes.     

The relationship between executive function and fine motor control in young and older adults

The present study examined the relationship between executive function (EF) and fine motor control in young and older healthy adults. Participants completed 3 measures of executive function; a spatial working memory (SWM) task, the Stockings of Cambridge task (planning), and the Intra-Dimensional Extra-Dimensional Set-Shift task (set-shifting). Fine motor control was assessed using 3 subtests of the Purdue Pegboard (unimanual, bimanual, sequencing). For the younger adults, there were no significant correlations between measures of EF and fine motor control. For the older adults, all EFs significantly correlated with all measures of fine motor control. Three separate regressions examined whether planning, SWM and set-shifting independently predicted unimanual, bimanual, and sequencing scores for the older adults. Planning was the primary predictor of performance on all three Purdue subtests. A multiple-groups mediation model examined whether planning predicted fine motor control scores independent of participants’ age, suggesting that preservation of planning ability may support fine motor control in older adults. Planning remained a significant predictor of unimanual performance in the older age group, but not bimanual or sequencing performance. The findings are discussed in terms of compensation theory, whereby planning is a key compensatory resource for fine motor control in older adults.     

The interactive effects of age,education, and BMI on cognitive functioning

We examined the moderating effects of age and cognitive reserve on the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and processing speed, executive function, and working memory based on the literature suggesting that obese individuals perform more poorly on measures of these abilities. Fifty-six healthy, dementia-free community-dwelling older (mean age 65.72 ± 7.40) and younger (mean age 21.10 ± 2.33) adults completed a neuropsychological battery and reported height and weight. Mixed effects models were used to evaluate the interactive effects of age, education (a proxy for cognitive reserve), and BMI on cognitive scores. Higher education was protective for executive deficits in younger, but not older adults. Age differences in executive functions were reduced at higher education levels but increased in individuals with higher BMI. Results suggest the inter-relationships between cognitive reserve – as measured by education – and BMI differ across age, and that obesity may accelerate the cognitive aging process.     

Do young and older adults rely on different processes in source memory tasks? A neuropsychological study

Source memory has consistently been associated with prefrontal function in both normal and clinical populations. Nevertheless, the exact contribution of this brain region to source memory remains uncertain, and evidence suggests that processes used by young and older adults may differ. The authors explored the extent to which scores on composite measures of neuropsychological tests of frontal and medial temporal function differentially predicted the performance of young and older adults on source memory tasks. Results indicated that a frontal composite measure, consistently associated with source memory performance in older adults, was unrelated to source memory in young adults, although it was sensitive to a demanding working memory task. The memory composite score, however, predicted performance in the young group. In addition, item and source memory were correlated in young but not older people. Findings are discussed in terms of age-related differences in working memory and executive functions, and differential binding processes necessary for item and source memory. The requirement to integrate item and source information at encoding appears to place greater demands on executive or working memory processes in older adults than in younger adults.     

Naturalistic assessment of executive function and everyday multitasking in healthy older adults

ABSTRACT

Everyday multitasking and its cognitive correlates were investigated in an older adult population using a naturalistic task, the Day Out Task. Fifty older adults and 50 younger adults prioritized, organized, initiated, and completed a number of subtasks in a campus apartment to prepare for a day out (e.g., gather ingredients for a recipe, collect change for a bus ride). Participants also completed tests assessing cognitive constructs important in multitasking. Compared to younger adults, the older adults took longer to complete the everyday tasks and more poorly sequenced the subtasks. Although they initiated, completed, and interweaved a similar number of subtasks, the older adults demonstrated poorer task quality and accuracy, completing more subtasks inefficiently. For the older adults, reduced prospective memory abilities were predictive of poorer task sequencing, while executive processes and prospective memory were predictive of inefficiently completed subtasks. The findings suggest that executive dysfunction and prospective memory difficulties may contribute to the age-related decline of everyday multitasking abilities in healthy older adults.     

Implicit Learning of Affective Responses in Dementia Patients: A Face-Emotion-Association Paradigm

ABSTRACT

Young and older adults performed verbal and spatial storage-only and storage-plus-processing working memory tasks while performing a secondary finger tapping task, and the effects on both the maximum capacity (measured as the longest series correct) and the reliability (measured as the proportion of items correct) of working memory were assessed. Tapping tended to produce greater disruption of working memory tasks that place greater demands on executive processes (i.e., storage-plus-processing tasks compared to storage-only span tasks). Moreover, tapping produced domain-general interference, disrupting both verbal and spatial working memory, providing further support for the idea that tapping interferes with the executive component of the working memory system, rather than domain-specific maintenance processes. Nevertheless, tapping generally produced equivalent interference effects in young and older adults. Taken together, these findings are inconsistent with the hypothesis that age-related declines in working memory are primarily attributable to a deficit in the executive component.     

The Role of Switching,Inhibition and Working Memory in Older Adults' Performance in the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test

ABSTRACT

The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) is considered a typical executive test. However, several interesting questions are still open as to the specific executive processes underlying this task. In the present study, we explored how local and global switching, inhibition and working memory, assessed through the Number–Letter, the Stop Signal and the Reading Span tasks, relate to older adults' performance in the WCST. Results showed that older adults' performance variability in the number of perseverative errors was predicted by the local switch component of the Number–Letter task. Results also showed age-related differences in inhibition, working memory and global switching, while local switching resulted largely spared in aging. This study provides evidence that switching abilities may contribute to performance of older adults in the WCST. It also provides initial evidence suggesting that switching processes, associated with local switch costs, are involved in performance on the WCST, at least in older adults.     

Predictors of semantic categorical flexibility in older adults

This study investigated the processes involved in the aging of semantic categorical flexibility. A previous study revealed the effects of aging on the flexible use of taxonomic relations. We aimed to explain our previous results regarding the performance of older adults; we carried out investigations into the respective roles of executive and conceptual factors in semantic categorical flexibility. Fifty older adults carried out a semantic categorical flexibility task alongside conceptual and executive measures. The results replicate our previous findings and indicate that the predictors of the maintenance of the use of taxonomic relations are conceptual and the predictors of the switching from thematic to taxonomic relations are executive.     

Speed isn't everything: complex processing speed measures mask individual differences and developmental changes in executive control

The rate at which people process information appears to influence many aspects of cognition across the lifespan. However, many commonly accepted measures of ‘processing speed’ may require goal maintenance, manipulation of information in working memory, and decision‐making, blurring the distinction between processing speed and executive control and resulting in overestimation of processing speed contributions to cognition. This concern may apply particularly to studies of developmental change, as even seemingly simple processing speed measures may require executive processes to keep children and older adults on task. We report two new studies and a re‐analysis of a published study, testing predictions about how different processing speed measures influence conclusions about executive control across the lifespan. We find that the choice of processing speed measure affects the relationship observed between processing speed and executive control, in a manner that changes with age, and that choice of processing speed measure affects conclusions about development and the relationship among executive control measures. Implications for understanding processing speed, executive control, and their development are discussed.     

Executive Functioning and Gambling: Performance on the Trail Making Test is Associated with Gambling Problems in Older Adult Gamblers

ABSTRACT

Rates of gambling problems in older adults have risen with increased accessibility of gambling venues. One possible contributor to problem gambling among older adults is decreased self-control brought about by diminished executive functioning. Consistent with this possibility, Study 1 revealed that older adults recruited from gambling venues reported greater gambling problems if they also experienced deficits in executive functioning, measured via the Trail Making Test. Study 2 replicated this finding and demonstrated that problem gambling is associated with increased depression among older adults, mediated by increased financial distress. These studies provide support for the hypothesis that older adult gamblers who have executive functioning problems are also likely to have gambling problems.