Age-related effects on a novel dual-task Stroop paradigm

Ward, Nathan; Hussey, Erika; Alzahabi, Reem; Gaspar, John G.; Kramer, Arthur F. · 2021 · Crossref

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0247923

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Summary

This study investigates age-related differences in inhibitory control using a novel dual-task Stroop paradigm designed to mitigate participant strategies that typically reduce task interference. Traditional Stroop tasks often yield mixed results regarding age differences because participants may employ strategies, such as blurring vision or focusing on peripheral cues, to bypass the need for inhibition. To address this construct validity issue, the researchers developed a protocol that adds secondary counting tasks to the standard Stroop task, thereby increasing cognitive load and limiting the efficacy of such avoidance strategies. The study included 34 younger adults (mean age 21) and 33 older adults (mean age 66). Participants completed three conditions: a Baseline single-task Stroop, a Color-Dual condition where they counted stimuli of a specific font color while naming colors, and a Lexical-Dual condition where they counted occurrences of a specific word while naming colors. The Lexical-Dual condition was designed to be incompatible with the primary task goal, as it required attending to the irrelevant lexical stream, whereas the Color-Dual condition was compatible. Performance was measured via response times (z-scored to control for general processing speed declines) and error rates. Results from the Baseline condition confirmed that older adults were selectively slower on incongruent trials compared to younger adults, though no age difference was found in error rates. In the dual-task conditions, performance was significantly worse in the Lexical-Dual condition than in the Color-Dual condition, indicating that activating the irrelevant information stream required greater inhibitory control. Crucially, a significant three-way interaction between Age, Trial Type, and Dual-Task Type was observed in error rates. Older adults exhibited disproportionately higher error rates in the Lexical-Dual condition on incongruent trials compared to younger adults. This interaction was partially supported in response latencies but was more definitive in accuracy metrics. The findings suggest that adding secondary task demands that conflict with the primary goal effectively minimizes the use of compensatory strategies, revealing more pronounced age-related deficits in inhibitory control. Specifically, older adults struggle more than younger adults when required to inhibit prepotent reading responses while simultaneously maintaining a goal related to that irrelevant information. These results imply that traditional single-task Stroop measures may underestimate age-related declines in inhibition due to strategy usage, and that dual-task paradigms offer a more sensitive tool for assessing executive function in aging populations.

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• dual task performance