Aging, memory, and attentional control

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The focus of my research program is to learn more about age-related change in cognitive function. Although the various aspects of cognitive change have been described in considerable detail, there has been a tendency to attribute these changes to a decline in some general process such as speed of information processing or frontal-lobe based executive functions. However, from a neurophysiological perspective, processing speed and executive functions themselves depend on a variety of neural systems for their operation and are, therefore, too broad to serve as an explanation for cognitive aging. The approach we are taking is to combine behavioural, electrophysiological, and cardiac measures to determine how the ability to modulate arousal through the autonomic nervous system can influence both mood, in the form of negative affect, and the capacity to control the allocation of attention during complex cognitive tasks. It is my goal to continue our exploration of the interplay among cognition, affect, and arousal as we study the ability of younger and older adults to engage in memory tasks that require the careful monitoring of ongoing performance.