Citation

Moret-Tatay C, Lemus-Zúñiga LG, Tortosa DA, Gamermann D, Vázquez-Martínez A, Navarro-Pardo E, Conejero JA. Scand. J. Psychol. 2017; 58(4): 304-311.

Affiliation

Instituto Universitario de Matemática Pura y Aplicada, Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Scandinavian Psychological Associations, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/sjop.12372

PMID

28670767

Abstract

The reaction time has been described as a measure of perception, decision making, and other cognitive processes. The aim of this work is to examine age-related changes in executive functions in terms of demand load under varying presentation times. Two tasks were employed where a signal detection and a discrimination task were performed by young and older university students. Furthermore, a characterization of the response time distribution by an ex-Gaussian fit was carried out. The results indicated that the older participants were slower than the younger ones in signal detection and discrimination. Moreover, the differences between both processes for the older participants were higher, and they also showed a higher distribution average except for the lower and higher presentation time. The results suggest a general slowdown in both tasks for age under different presentation times, except for the cases where presentation times were lower and higher. Moreover, if these parameters are understood to be a reflection of executive functions, these findings are consistent with the common view that age-related cognitive deficits show a decline in this function.

© 2017 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Language: en

Keywords

Signal detection; age-related differences; discrimination; distribution components