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Age-Related Differences in Cue-Guided Preparation and Target Processing in Crossmodal Response Precueing
Pi-Chun Huang1, Ludivine A Schils2, Iring Koch2
1Department of Psychology, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.
Psychophysiology
|August 11, 2026
Summary
Older adults benefit from spatial cues for faster responses but may make more errors due to response uncertainty. Aging affects how spatial and modality cues influence preparation and target processing.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Human Aging Research
- Psychology
Background:
- Age-related cognitive decline impacts response preparation and processing.
- Understanding how older adults utilize precues is crucial for optimizing performance.
- Crossmodal action tasks reveal insights into sensorimotor integration and age differences.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate age-related differences in using spatial and modality precues for preparation and target processing.
- To examine behavioral and neural responses to different precue types in younger and older adults.
- To explore how precue information influences response selection under uncertainty in aging.
Main Methods:
- Crossmodal response-precueing task with manual or vocal responses to visual or auditory targets.
- Recording of event-related potentials (ERPs) including contingent negative variation (CNV), early negativity, P3, and lateralized readiness potentials (LRPs).
- Comparison of younger (n=36) and older (n=33) adults' performance and neural activity under three precue conditions: modality, spatial, and uninformative.
Main Results:
- Informative precues improved performance in both age groups.
- Older adults responded faster but less accurately to spatial precues, indicating faster responding but increased errors.
- Neural data revealed reduced preparatory engagement in older adults and age-dependent modulation of early negativity and P3 measures.
- Spatial precues elicited lateralized response preparation in younger adults, but this was less evident in older adults.
Conclusions:
- Aging alters the utilization of precues for response preparation, especially under uncertainty.
- Spatial precues can enhance response speed in older adults but may lead to errors when response selection is required post-cue.
- Neural findings highlight age-related differences in sustained preparation and target processing influenced by precue type.
