Colloquium Healthy Ageing by prof.dr. Richard Ridderinkhof

Lecturer

prof. dr. K. Richard Ridderinkhof

Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Amsterdam

Title

Healthy Aging Tips the Balance from Goal-Directed Action to S-R Habit Acquisition

Abstract

Instrumental learning is supported by dissociable goal-directed and habitual systems. Although the balance between these systems has not been investigated in healthy aging, previous research suggests that aging affects controlled, effortful, conscious processing, while there is less evidence for impaired skill learning based on stimulus-response (S-R) mappings. In order to investigate directly the effect of healthy aging on the dual-system balance, we compared performance of young and older adults on an instrumental learning task in which devaluation of action outcomes affects goal-directed but not habitual action.

Older adults display over-reliance on S-R habit learning at the expense of flexible, goal-directed action. These findings are novel but consistent with previous research and will be discussed in relation to changes in frontostriatal circuitry, and in relation to other recent findings from our lab on aging and association learning.

For more information you may contact dr. Monicque Lorist, m.m.lorist rug.nl