Crossmodal response precueing: Age-related differences in action preparation

Objectives This study examined the impact of crossmodal response precueing on action preparation in young and older adults. Methods Young (n = 37; 18-30 years) and older (n = 36; 60-77 years) adults performed a crossmodal visual-auditory version of the precueing paradigm, using a four-choice task with three precue-types. Informative precues either referred to response-modality (manual vs. vocal) or abstract spatial response feature (left vs. right key press or vocal response). Informative precues reduced the number of possible stimulus-response options from four to two, whereas uninformative precues cued all four possible options. The precueing benefit was calculated as the performance difference between informative vs. uninformative precues. In addition, the cue-target interval (CTI) was varied to examine the benefit of long preparation time. Results Response-modality precues led to better performance compared to spatial and uninformative precues. In response-modality precues, older adults benefited more from long preparation time than young adults. For older adults, spatial precues produced a speed-accuracy tradeoff relative to uninformative cues, with shorter response times but higher error rates, particularly when the CTI was long. Discussion The pronounced increase in error rates with spatial precues when the CTI was long suggests that older adults had particular difficulty maintaining an abstract spatial response code without being able to specify the effector modality. Overall, the findings suggest that, in a complex multimodal setting involving variability in both stimulus modality and response modality, both young and older adults are efficient when they are cued for a specific response modality.