Age effect on relationships between inhibitory functions of executive attention system and visual memory

It is known that aging is accompanied by a weakening of the processes of inhibition in the central nervous system, but with a significant individual variability. In connection with this, the purpose of the study was to study the patterns of these age effects using experimental models of executive control of attention and memory. It is shown that relationships between the intelligence, the speed of information selection, the volume of short-term visual memory and the indicator of proactive interference that obtained in twenty-year-old adults are disrupted in the sixty-year-olds. For both age groups, differentiation of memory strategies is characterized by either Retrieval-Induced Forgetting or Retrieval-Based Learning. Young with the dominance of the Retrieval-Induced Forgetting effect differ in higher intelligence from those who are characterized by the predominance of Retrieval-Based Learning strategies, and the elderly — the best executive control of attention. Therefore, despite the positive impact of Retrieval-Based Learning on memory, the effectiveness of cognitive activity in the elderly is more closely related to preserving of inhibitory functions in information interference processes.

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