The Integration of Emotion and Cognitive Control in the Aging Brain

认知控制(即以目标为导向的认知和行为调节)是日常生活中的一种关键能力，随着年龄的增长，这种能力往往会下降。另一方面，研究表明，老年人的情绪功能得到了保护，甚至得到了增强。尽管与年龄相关的认知控制缺陷和情绪功能的维持在文献中已经有了很好的单独记录，但关于这两个过程如何整合在一起共同影响认知的年龄差异，我们知之甚少。随着对情绪-认知整合的研究兴趣迅速兴起(例如，Pessoa，2008)，该研究采用了一种新的方法来确定与面对情绪时认知控制的年龄差异相关的行为指标和神经机制。具体地说，我们讨论了老年人增强的情绪处理是否以及如何与他们认知控制能力的下降相互作用的问题。这些问题将在四个精心设计的行为实验和一项脑电波研究中得到解决。为了评估情绪的效果，我们将通过引入情绪刺激(实验1)或通过情绪诱导激发情绪调节(实验2)来操纵情绪加工，让年轻人和老年人执行认知控制AX-CPT任务(AX版本的连续表现测试)。在这项任务中，只有当探头“X”跟随线索“A”时，参与者才会对“目标”做出反应，而对任何其他组合(即，AY、BX或BY)则会对“非目标”做出反应。此外，我们打算在两个年龄组中考察线索探测延迟(实验3)和干扰试验(例如，BX或AY试验；实验4)在情绪对认知控制的影响中的调节作用。最后，为了评估神经关联，将使用脑电(EEG)来收集年轻人和老年人对AX-CPT任务中的线索和探测的事件相关电位(ERP)反应(实验5)。这项工作将为认知老化研究提供新的理论和方法上的贡献。鉴于认知控制在日常活动中的关键作用，预计这些发现将在认知培训和涉及老年人的教育等应用领域产生一些有洞察力的实际影响，老年人是一个在世界各地迅速增长的人口。

Cognitive control (i.e., goal-directed cognitive and behavioural regulation), a crucial ability for everyday life, tends to decline with age. On the other hand, emotional functioning has been shown to be preserved or even enhanced in older adults. Although age-associated deficits in cognitive control and maintenance in emotional functioning have been well-documented separately in the literature, little is known about how the two processes could be integrated to jointly affect age differences in cognition. Along with the rapidly emerging research interest in emotion-cognition integration (e.g., Pessoa, 2008), the proposed research takes a novel approach to identify behavioural indexes and neural mechanisms associated with age differences in cognitive control in the face of emotion. Specifically, we address questions of whether and how older adults' enhanced emotional processing interacts with their declines in cognitive control. These questions will be addressed in four well-designed behavioural experiments and one EEG study. To assess the effect of emotion, we will manipulate emotional processing by introducing emotional stimuli (Experiment 1) or motivating emotional regulation through mood inductions (Experiment 2) with young and older adults performing the cognitive control AX-CPT task (AX version of the Continuous Performance Test). In this task, participants respond "target" to a probe "X" only if it follows a cue "A", and respond "non-target" to any other combinations (i.e., AY, BX, or BY). Furthermore, we intend to examine the moderating effect of cue-probe delay (Experiment 3) and the frequency of interference trials (e.g., BX or AY trials; Experiment 4) in the effect of emotion on cognitive control in both age groups. Finally, to assess the neural correlates, electroencephalography (EEG) will be used to collect Event-Related-Potential (ERP) responses of young and older adults to the cue and probe in the AX-CPT task (Experiment 5). The proposed work will make novel theoretical and methodological contributions to cognitive aging research. Given the critical role of cognitive control in daily activities, the findings are expected to have some insightful practical implications in such applied domains as cognitive training and education involving older adults, a population that is rapidly growing across the world.