Age influence on automatic and expectancy mechanisms in sequential effects in serial reaction-time tasks.

The aim of the research project is the identification of the processes that cause implicit learning effects in serial reactio-time (RT) tasks. Manipulation of the response- stimulus interval determines the emergence of automatic facilitation and subjective expectancy mechanisms in sequential effects in choice RT-tasks. In previous research we found evidence that elderly adults compared to young adults, show a decrease in automatic facilitation, whereas subjective expectancy stays at least equally strong. Then, if implicit learning is based on automatic automatic facilitation, we can expect a decline of implicit learning performance with age. If on the other hand, implicit learning is based on expectancy, we can hypothesise a minor influence of age. Once we identified the proces that lies at the heart of the learning effect, we can localise it in the stages of the information processing system. This way we could contribute to the recent revival of mental chronometry research about practice effects and repetition effects that presumably play a major role in long-term learning-effects. In addition, this approach could lead to an explanation for the fact that implicit learning performance, in contrast to explicit learning performances, is not affected by cognitive deficits with a neurological basis such as brain lesions and dementia of the Alzheimer type.