Age influence on automatic and expectancy mechanisms in serial choice reaction time.

In this project we propose to investigate whether two different mechanisms of information processing found in serial choice reaction time tasks, are both slowing down in the same monotone way with age. In previous research with young adults, we found that both mechanisms can be separated on the basis of differences in reaction-time patterns, caused by the sequential order of stimulus presentations. Research with 12-year old children showed stronger automatic facilitation effects, whereas expectancy effects were absent. These results, together with the results of a pilot study with older people, seem to indicate that only automatic facilitation decreases monotonically with age, whereas expectancy remains stable after adulthood, and may play a dominating role for older people.