Social priming improves cognitive control in elderly adults--evidence from the Simon task

Daniela Aisenberg; Noga Cohen; Hadas Pick; Iris Tressman; Michal Rappaport; Tal Shenberg; Avishai Henik

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0117151

Social priming improves cognitive control in elderly adults--evidence from the Simon task

PLoS One. 2015 Jan 30;10(1):e0117151. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0117151. eCollection 2015.

Authors

Daniela Aisenberg¹, Noga Cohen¹, Hadas Pick¹, Iris Tressman¹, Michal Rappaport¹, Tal Shenberg¹, Avishai Henik¹

Affiliation

¹ Department of Psychology, and the Zlotowski Center for Neuroscience, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel.

Abstract

We examined whether social priming of cognitive states affects the inhibitory process in elderly adults, as aging is related to deficits in inhibitory control. Forty-eight elderly adults and 45 young adults were assigned to three groups and performed a cognitive control task (Simon task), which was followed by 3 different manipulations of social priming (i.e., thinking about an 82 year-old person): 1) negative--characterized by poor cognitive abilities, 2) neutral--characterized by acts irrelevant to cognitive abilities, and 3) positive--excellent cognitive abilities. After the manipulation, the Simon task was performed again. Results showed improvement in cognitive control effects in seniors after the positive manipulation, indicated by a significant decrease in the magnitude of the Simon and interference effects, but not after the neutral and negative manipulations. Furthermore, a healthy pattern of sequential effect (Gratton) that was absent before the manipulation in all 3 groups appeared after the positive manipulation. Namely, the Simon effect was only present after congruent but not after incongruent trials for the positive manipulation group. No influence of manipulations was found in young adults. These meaningful results were replicated in a second experiment and suggest a decrease in conflict interference resulting from positive cognitive state priming. Our study provides evidence that an implicit social concept of a positive cognitive condition in old age can affect the control process of the elderly and improve cognitive abilities.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adult
Aged
Cognition*
Female
Humans
Male
Reaction Time
Social Behavior*
Task Performance and Analysis*
Young Adult

Grants and funding

This study was supported in part by a Kreitman Scholarship from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (http://in.bgu.ac.il/en/kreitman_school/Pages/default.aspx) and a grant from the Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute of Gerontology and Human Development and Eshel, the association for the planning and development of services for the aged in Israel (http://brookdale.jdc.org.il/). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.