2005 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Behavioral regulation in elderly adults
| Project/Area Number |
15530438
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Educational psychology
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| Research Institution | Ritsumeikan University |
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Principal Investigator |
TSUCHIDA Noriaki Ritsumeikan University, Faculty of Letters, associate professor, 文学部, 助教授 (40217328)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2003 – 2005
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| Keywords | inhibition / elderly adults / aging / behavioral regulation / cognition / inhibitory function |
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| Research Abstract |
This year, studies to date on the inhibitory function are reviewed and summarized. First, it has been demonstrated that the inhibitory functions of elderly people do not decline equally. Two types of inhibitory functions : one easily affected by aging, and the other little affected by aging (McDowd, 1997) has been proposed. For example, it is known that the inhibitions of the activated response, an identity-based inhibitory function, and the inhibition of responses caused by stimulation, a location-based inhibitory function, are easily affected by aging. Second, the activated inhibitory function has a significant influence on elderly people. For example, in the go/no-go task, in elderly people the response to another stimulus was considerably delayed in comparison to young adults, under the conditions of needing response-inhibition. Moreover, compared with young adults, the effect of IOR (inhibition of return) task remained stronger and more persistently in elderly people. These results suggest that once the inhibitory function is activated, it is difficult for elderly people to disengage that function. Thirdly, young adults, unlike elderly people, always have a tendency to strengthen the inhibitory functions and inhibit impulsive reaction by arousing intentional attention. Moreover, by arousing intentional attention to stimulation, reaction time of young adults was delayed and the rate of false responses decreased. In elderly people, reaction time was delayed, however, the rate of false responses increased. These results suggest that it is difficult for elderly people to strengthen inhibitory functions by arousing intentional attention.
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