Neurophysiological Measures of Task-Set Switching: Effects of Working Memory and Aging

We investigated age-related differences in task-switching performance by using behavioral measures and event-related brain potentials. We tested younger and older adults, and we separated older adults into groups with high and low working memory (WM); that is, we separated them into old-high-WM and old-low-WM groups. On average, all participants responded more slowly in mixed-task than in single-task blocks (i.e., reaction time or RT mixing cost). Younger adults and old-high-WM participants had equivalent RT mixing costs and showed larger posterior negative slow-wave activity when preparing for mixed trials than for single-task trials, suggesting that mixed-task trials required trial-to-trial preparation. Old-high-WM participants also showed frontally distributed activity on mixed-task trials, suggesting their use of executive control to offset age-related differences in mixed-task preparation. In contrast, old-low-WM participants had large RT mixing costs and large posterior event-related brain potential negativities during single-task trials, suggesting that they prepare during single- and mixed-task blocks. High WM, therefore, may help older adults offset the age-related difficulties often observed when they are task switching.