Age-related effects of different types of noise and stimulus quality: An event-related potential (ERP) study
article
Young and elderly adults were exposed to meaningful conglomerate noise (c-noise) and white noise (w-noise) while they responded to intact and degraded visual stimuli. Complementary to performance measures P3 and the Slow Wave component of the event-related potential were recorded to the visual stimuli. The neural noise hypothesis served as a theoretical Framework for the present study. According to this hypothesis older subjects should be affected more strongly by external conditions that increase the level of neural noise than younger subjects. C-noise and w-noise had contrasting effects on the speed of responding: under c-noise subjects reacted slower, and under w-noise subjects reacted faster than in the quiet condition. The absence of any effect of the two types of noise on the latency of P3 Further suggested that the loci of the effect of noise on response speed are response-related processes rather than stimulus-related processes. At the performance level no evidence was found that elderly subjects were affected more strongly by auditory noise or degradation of stimuli than younger subject. However, the presentation of c-noise caused a relatively large increase in slow wave negativity in old subjects, relative to the quiet and w-noise conditions. This could indicate that older subjects invested more effort in the task to maintain normal performance levels.
TNO Identifier
233157
ISSN
02698803
Source
Journal of Psychophysiology, 10(3), pp. 239-251.
Pages
239-251