2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report
Experimental study on changes in empathy and inhibition with aging
| Project/Area Number |
23730711
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
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| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
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| Research Field |
Experimental psychology
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| Research Institution | Aichi Shukutoku University |
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Principal Investigator |
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| Project Period (FY) |
2011-04-28 – 2015-03-31
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| Keywords | 高齢者 / 抑制 / NIRS / サイモン課題 / フランカー課題 |
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
Studies on cognitive aging have demonstrated that aging is accompanied by a decreased ability to inhibit irrelevant information. The elderly, however, don't always show deficit in an inhibition task. Previous studies suggest that the elderly compensate their decreased inhibitory ability by an exaggerated activation in prefrontal brain area, which is responsible for inhibition. We compared the younger adults and the elderly in the Franker and Simon tasks by recording brain activity with a near-infra red spectoroscotopy (NIRS). The elderly showed greater Simon effect, although the Franker effect was equivalent to the young. However, greater brain activities were observed in the elderly in the Franker task. The NIRS scores show that brain activity in right dorsolateral area was greater in incongruent condition than in congruent condition in the Simon task, suggesting that this area was responsible for response inhibition, while there was no group difference in this activity.
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| Free Research Field |
実験心理学
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