Saturday 10th of May 11.45-13.15
Aula Volta
Chair of the session – Federica Salmaso
| 11.45-12.05 | Sarah De Pue | EEG Insights into Proactive and Reactive Control in Healthy Aging. |
| 12.05-12.25 | Eva Van den Bussche | The interplay between cognitive and motor control in aging. |
| 12.25-12.45 | Simone Galati | The impact of the complex interaction of basic mechanisms on reading decline in healthy aging. |
| 12.45-13.05 | Matilde Menghini | Parallel semantic reading of multiple words in ageing. |
Abstracts
EEG Insights into Proactive and Reactive Control in Healthy Aging
by Sarah De Pue | Céline Gillebert | Eva Dierckx | Eva Van den Bussche
1 KU Leuven
2 Vrije Universiteit Brussel
3 Alexianen Zorggroep Tienen
As life expectancy increases, declines in cognitive control with age become more prominent, significantly impacting daily life. The Dual Mechanisms of Control theory distinguishes two cognitive control modes. Whereas proactive control works preventively and anticipatory before conflict arises, reactive control detects and resolves conflict only after it occurs. While young adults can flexibly switch between reactive and proactive control, this balance seems to be disturbed in healthy older adults. However, the precise nature of changes in proactive versus reactive control with aging remains debated. Therefore, we are currently administering a proactive-reactive control test battery while simultaneously recording EEG in 40 young and 40 older adults. Preliminary results show indications of decreased proactive and reactive control in old compared to young adults. Interestingly, EEG results show that, instead of not being able to use proactive control, older adults actually over-recruit proactive control and are less able to adapt to the task context. These findings show that EEG is a sensitive tool to detect more subtle differences in proactive and reactive control with age that go beyond behavioral indices. In addition, we will administer this test battery in older adults with Mild Cognitive Impairment to identify objective markers of early cognitive decline.
The interplay between cognitive and motor control in aging.
by Eva Van den Bussche1 | Sarah De Pue1 | Gethin Hughes2 | Bert Reynvoet1 |
1 Brain & Cognition, KU Leuven, Belgium
2 Department of Psychology, University of Essex, UK
With aging, both cognitive control (e.g., updating, shifting and inhibition) and motor control (e.g., fine motor control) decline, affecting older adults’ daily activities and independence. However, the interplay between cognitive and motor control in aging remains understudied. We addressed this by using a task that concurrently manipulates both cognitive control and motor control exertion. Generally, older adults (N=193) initiated their responses on the task more slowly and responded slower than young adults (N=137). Compared to young adults, older adults seemed to sacrifice the preparation of the cognitive task (i.e., larger difference between congruent and incongruent trials in initiation times) in order to prioritize the preparation of the motor task (i.e., smaller difference between trials requiring less and more motor control in initiation times). Despite this preparatory strategy, older adults showed less efficient motor control exertion in their reaction times. Interestingly, in the reaction time data, they showed a smaller congruency effect (indicating more efficient cognitive control exertion) when the required motor control was high as opposed to low. This was not observed in young adults. These findings indicate that there are notable difference between older and young adults when task performance requires both cognitive and motor control.
The impact of the complex interaction of basic mechanisms on reading decline in healthy aging.
by Simone Galati1 | Sara Pegoraro1, 2 | Alessio Facchin1, 2, 3 | Camilla Frontoni1 | Francesca Luchesa1 | Elena Rolandi4, 5 | Antonio Guaita4 | Lisa S. Arduino6 | Roberta Daini1, 2, 7
1 Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca
2 NeuroMI – Milan Centre for Neuroscience
3 Optics and optometry research center University of Milano Bicocca (COMiB)
4 Golgi Cenci Foundation, Abbiategrasso
5 Department of Brain Behavioral Sciences, University of Pavia
6 Department of Human Sciences – LUMSA University, Rome
7 IRCCS Fondazione Don Carlo Gnocchi ONLUS, Milan
Aging leads to a physiological decline in many cognitive functions, even without pathological processes. These cognitive changes affect the elderly’s quality of life and well-being, impacting their daily activities. Reading is among the skills most affected by aging since it requires the integrity of several cognitive components, such as linguistic, visual, oculomotor, and attentional processes. While language remains largely intact, visual and cognitive components may decline, affecting reading efficiency. Visuospatial attention and crowding are both involved in the reading process, but their roles in age-related changes in reading remain unclear. Our study aimed to investigate the presence of an actual decline in reading and the implications of crowding and visuospatial attention in this potential age- related decline. 120 neurologically healthy older adults (age range 60-88) underwent neuropsychological assessment to investigate global cognitive functioning, reading skills, crowding, and attention components. We found a decline in reading abilities, not in visual acuity, crowding, or visuospatial attention. Interestingly, we found that the Symbol Digit Modalities Test fully mediated the relationship between aging and reading. This complex task involves attention, working memory, and processing speed. The age-related decline in reading could be considered a consequence of the complex interaction among these basic mechanisms.
Parallel semantic reading of multiple words in ageing.
by Matilde Menghini1 | Silvia Primativo2 | Valentina Bandiera2 | Laura Veronelli1 | Carlotta Lega1 | Luisa Girelli1 | Fabrizio Zeri1 | Roberta Daini1
1 Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca
2 LUMSA
Reading, like other complex abilities, can change with age and older adults may experience fatigue and rely more on contextual cues for compensation. Reduced visual acuity and increased crowding likely narrow the visual span, which in turn could affect semantic processing in parafovea and slow down reading.
We investigated these age-related differences by examining parafoveal-on-foveal and parafoveal preview effects using the Rapid Parallel Visual Presentation paradigm (Primativo et al., 2022).
Specifically, we assessed whether adults aged 65+ show diminished parafoveal semantic processing and whether visual span limitations contribute to reading slowdown. We hypothesize longer reading times for older adults compared to younger participants, maintained accuracy for foveal words but reduced accuracy for parafoveal words and a decreased visual span.
Preliminary, we assessed visual parameters with an optometric examination, and we excluded those participants with low vision.
Participants read pairs of words presented for 150 ms, and we recorded reaction times and accuracy. Preliminary results from 25 young adults (M age = 25.85 years) show faster reading times and higher accuracy for semantically related pairs, replicating findings by Primativo et al. (2022). Our next step will be the enrollment of 25 older adults (ages 65–75) to explore age-related reading differences.