Section Days abstract book 2010.indd - RUB Research School ...

LS_5
ATTENUATED FEEDBACK-RELATED NEGATIVITY
IN HEALTHY AGING
Stefan Kobza, Christian Bellebaum, Stefan Thiele, Irene Daum
Fakultät für Psychologie, Institut für Kognitive Neurowissenschaft, Abteilung
Neuropsychologie, 44780 Bochum, Germany
e-mail: stefan.kobza@rub.de
Introduction: In feedback-based learning tasks, the feedback-related negativity (FRN), an
event-related potentials component reflecting activity of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC),
has been shown to be more pronounced in young subjects if reward was highly expected but
not delivered. This study aimed to elucidate whether the FRN shows age-related changes with
respect to the coding of expected and unexpected performance outcomes.
Methods: 18 younger and 20 older subjects completed a feedback learning task in which a 5
cent coin was hidden in one of 6 boxes (2 rows of 3 boxes) on each of 660 trials. After
choosing among two displays of preselected boxes, subjects could learn the hiding-rule
(hiding-place always in the lower row) via feedback (reward vs. non-reward). Throughout the
task, 30 scalp sites were used for electroencephalograpy recording.
Results: Older subjects learned more slowly than younger subjects. FRN amplitude was
generally reduced in older subjects and higher for unexpected compared to expected negative
feedback in both groups.
Conclusion: FRN amplitude was reduced in older subjects despite comparable performance
accuracy. The general FRN amplitude attenuation in older subjects is in line with reports of
age-related striatal and midbrain changes and suggests a reduced sensitivity to reward
magnitude.