Event Segmentation Enhances Older Adults' Reactive Cognitive Control Bias.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive psychology
• Neuroscience
• Gerontology

Background:

• Older adults often default to reactive control strategies.
• Event segmentation, the perception of distinct temporal segments in ongoing activity, can influence cognitive control.
• Previous research suggests event segmentation enhances proactive control in young adults.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of event segmentation on cognitive control mode use in older adults.
• To determine if a spatial event boundary enhances reactive control in older adults, contrasting with young adults' proactive control enhancement.
• To test the hypothesis that event segmentation impedes cue-reactivation in older adults, thus strengthening reactive control.

Main Methods:

• A modified AX-Continuous Performance Test (AX-CPT) was administered to 30 older adults (mean age = 73).
• The task incorporated a spatial event boundary (left vs. right display shift) between cue and probe presentation.
• Participants completed both a standard AX-CPT and an event-segmented AX-CPT in separate blocks.

Main Results:

• Error rates indicated a shift towards greater reactive control use in the event-segmented AX-CPT compared to the standard AX-CPT.
• Findings supported the hypothesis that a spatial event boundary enhances older adults' reactive control bias.
• The results align with predictions from the dual mechanisms of control framework and the event horizon model.

Conclusions:

• Perceptual event boundaries can modulate cognitive control strategies in older adults.
• Task-specific manipulations, like spatial event segmentation, can effectively alter control mode engagement.
• This study contributes to understanding how environmental factors influence cognitive control in aging populations.