Stimulus–response Compatibility Paradigm and Aging

Abstract

This article challenges the concept of an aging effect on inhibition as reflected in cognitive tasks and proposes a measurement metric other than task performance for measuring inhibition. In general, the stimulus–response compatibility paradigm is used to measure inhibition on the cognitive tasks. In this paradigm, inhibition is indicated by the compatibility effect, measured by the difference between performance under conflict and that under non-conflict conditions. An increase in the compatibility effect reflects a decrease in inhibition. Previous studies have suggested that inhibition decreases with aging due to decreased executive function. However, comparisons of young adults' and elderly adults' task performance have been inconsistent. This article first explains how the compatibility effect arises from the stimulus–response compatibility paradigm and describes how inhibition is reflected in various tasks. Next, studies on the aging effect in each task are reviewed. Finally, the present article proposes a novel method to examine the aging effect on inhibition that does not relay on measures of task performance such as reaction time and error rate.