Abstract
Inhibitory control of prepotent responses has been examined by using the antisaccade task, during which a reflexive saccade toward a peripheral onset must be suppressed before an eye movement in the opposite direction from the onset can be executed. In the present experiments, we sought to determine whether older and younger adults would perform similarly on this task. Older adults had a harder time suppressing their reflexive responses, as measured by an increase in the proportion of saccade direction errors. Despite an age-related decline in saccade direction accuracy, the increase in saccade latency associated with the antisaccade condition was the same for both younger and older adults. These results support the view that the effectiveness of inhibitory control declines with age (Hasher & Zacks, 1988; Hasher, Zacks, & May, 1999).
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Portions of the research reported in this article were presented at the 1996 meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association in Chicago and at the 1996 meeting of the Cognitive Aging Conference in Atlanta. This research was supported by grants from the National Institute on Aging (AGO 4306) to R.T.Z. and from the Army Research Office (DAAH04-94-G-0404) and the National Institute of Mental Health (R03-MH53023-01) to J.M.H.
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Butler, K.M., Zacks, R.T. & Henderson, J.M. Suppression of reflexive saccades in younger and older adults: Age comparisons on an antisaccade task. Memory & Cognition 27, 584–591 (1999). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03211552
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03211552