INHIBITORY PROCESS IN SELECTIVE ATTENTION AND AGING

描述（作者摘要）：本提案检验了这一假设 与年龄相关的抑制功能下降 选择性注意力的差异。 注意力是一个复杂的功能， 涉及促进过程之间的平衡的神经系统 和抑制。 这里假设衰老与 行为抑制控制和年龄相关缺陷的变化， 注意力功能的改变破坏了 促进和抑制过程。 本系列实验 本建议旨在研究抑制过程的作用 注意力的年龄差异。 三个实验涉及 自主神经系统中注意力的心理生理学测量。 这些研究的目的是检查生理过程， 习惯化和抑制，使用定向范式，其中 自主定向反应被用来反映 关注 如果年龄相关的抑制功能下降模型 是有效的，这种下降应该通过减少习惯来证明， 不相关的信息。 三个进一步 实验研究了在背景中抑制加工的年龄差异 负启动模式的一部分。 负启动现象 依赖于有效的抑制过程，因此允许 简单的预测，老年人应该表现出减少 负启动，甚至根本没有启动。 这里提出的工作主体 测试了一个关于年龄差异的特定假设， 注意力功能，因此可以做出重要贡献， 科学认识衰老和选择性注意力。

DESCRIPTION (Author's Abstract): The present proposal tests the hypothesis that age-related declines in inhibitory function account for age differences in selective attention. Attention is a complex function of the nervous system involving a balance between the processes of facilitation and inhibition. It is postulated here that aging is associated with changes in the inhibitory control of behavior and age-related deficits in attentional functioning represent a disruption of the balance between facilitatory and inhibitory processes. The series of experiments in the present proposal was designed to examine the role of inhibitory processes in age differences in attention. Three experiments involve psychophysiological measures of attention in the autonomic nervous system. These studies are intended to examine physiological processes of habituation and inhibition, using orienting paradigms in which the autonomic orienting response is taken to reflect the allocation of attention. If the model of age-associated decline in inhibitory function is valid, this decline should be evidenced by reduced habituation to irrelevant information on the part of older adults. Three further experiments examine age differences in inhibitory processing in the context of the negative priming paradigm. The phenomenon of negative priming depends on efficient inhibitory processes, and so allows the straightforward prediction that older adults should exhibit reduced negative priming, or even none at all. The body of work proposed here tests a specific hypothesis about the locus of age differences in attentional functioning, and thus can make an important contribution to scientific understanding of aging and selective attention.