Proefschrift_Holstein

Chapter 5

Abstract Flexible cognitive control refers to the ability to adapt to our ever changing environment and is a hallmark of human cognition. It is well known that optimal flexible cognitive control is sensitive to reward motivation and that the promise of a reward can improve performance on tasks of flexible cognitive control, such as task-switching paradigms. Healthy aging is accompanied by impairments in flexible cognitive control, but also in reward-related processes and changes in processing speed. Here we test the hypothesis that changes in task-switching ability across the life span are a function of promised reward. We tested 118 participants (14-69 years old) on a task-switching paradigm with a reward motivation manipulation. Results revealed that increasing age is associated with reduced influence of a promised reward on flexible cognitive control, in terms of speed-accuracy strategy. These findings indicate that healthy aging across the life span is accompanied by diminished reward-related adaptation of cognitive strategy during task-switching.

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