Comparative Study On The Supraliminal And Subliminal Conflict Control In Young And Old Subjects

In daily lives, people are surrounded by all kinds of information, some of theinformation is what we need, and some of which is what we needn’t and eveninterferes our lives. So it is very important for us to control the conflictinformation successfully and obtain the useful information. Conflict control refersto the conflict or competitive situations to overcome irrelevant information,selecting the relevant information in order to achieve their objective, which ismonitoring the behavior of cognitive control and conflict resolution embodiesfunctionality. Many studies have tried to explore the domestic and psychologicalprocesses and mechanisms for conflict control and also achieved some certainachievement. However, most of these studies focused on the conscious level andthe results of the study are also different. What’s more, the subjects’ ages aremostly young. With an ageing population has become increasingly obvious, theability of cognitive control in elderly has gradually become a hot topic in attentionstudy. Existing research shows that different aspects of cognitive ability in elderlywill appear different degrees with aging, such as the speed of implicit memorydecline slower than that of the explicit memory. So whether the ability ofsubliminal conflicts control is different or the same from the ability ofsupraliminal conflicts control in elderly? In current study, masked version of thepriming-target paradigm, combining ERP technology to explore the similaritiesand differences between young and elder of the conflict under the subliminal andsupraliminal control.The study included two experiments, stimulating materials respectively byusing the arrow and digital. Experiment for3(consistency)×2(priming time)×2(age) mixed design, subjects were asked to judge the direction of the arrow targetstimuli. There are three levels of consistency, priming stimulating and arrowtoward the target stimuli consistent, inconsistent, and neutral; the priming timeincluding two levels:16ms and128ms; age variables including the two levels ofyouth and elders. To further explore the differences priming time young and old conflicts triggered by control functions, and its relationship with the cognitiveload and task difficulty, has conducted a second experiment. The secondexperiment was3(consistency)×4(priming time)×2(age) mixed design, wereasked to determine whether the target stimulus and the size of the additive formula.Digital stimulus and consistency boot target stimuli includes three levels,consistent (greater than10or less than10), inconsistent (priming numbers andformula and a greater than10, less than a10), neutral (priming number is10);priming time includes four levels:16ms,32ms,64ms,128ms; two levels of testtypes also includes young and elderly groups. Two experiments were the subjectsof the dependent variable response time and accuracy and record the subject’sEEG data.Comprehensive analysis of the behavior and EEG data of the twoexperiments, we came to the following conclusions:(1) Subliminal arrow priming information only led to conflict effects theelderly. Subliminal digital priming information triggered conflict effects in bothyoung and old people. And young and old alike have a lower threshold for conflictinformation to monitor and resolve capacity;(2) On the supraliminal of conflict situations, the elderly conflict monitoringand addressing information needs to spend more cognitive resources than youngpeople;(3) Young and old subliminal conflict control are significantly weaker thanconflict under the supraliminal conflict control;(4) In the context of the information threshold triggered the conflict primed,the young and elderly groups were tested in the response latency and the volatilityof the underlying brain waves and no significant difference can be consideredunder the ability of supraliminal conflicts control between the young and elder.(5) Compare similarities and differences between the two experimentalresults can be found in a relatively simple task, cognitive control abilities betweenyoung and elder was not significant, but in relatively complex and more difficulttask, cognitive control ability of the elderly was weaker than young people.