The speed-accuracy tradeoff in the elderly brain: a structural model-based approach

Abstract

Even in the simplest laboratory tasks older adults generally take more time to respond than young adults. One of the reasons for this age-related slowing is that older adults are reluctant to commit errors, a cautious attitude that prompts them to accumulate more information before making a decision (Rabbitt, 1979). This suggests that age-related slowing may be partly due to unwillingness on behalf of elderly participants to adopt a fast-but-careless setting when asked. We investigate the neuroanatomical and neurocognitive basis of age-related slowing in a perceptual decision-making task where cues instructed young and old participants to respond either quickly or accurately. Mathematical modeling of the behavioral data confirmed that cueing for speed encouraged participants to set low response thresholds, but this was more evident in younger than older participants. Diffusion weighted structural images suggest that the more cautious threshold settings of older participants may be due to a reduction of white matter integrity in corticostriatal tracts that connect the pre-SMA to the striatum. These results are consistent with the striatal account of the speed-accuracy tradeoff according to which an increased emphasis on response speed increases the cortical input to the striatum, resulting in global disinhibition of the cortex. Our findings suggest that the unwillingness of older adults to adopt fast speed-accuracy tradeoff settings may not just reflect a strategic choice that is entirely under voluntary control, but that it may also reflect structural limitations: age-related decrements in brain connectivity.

Figure 1.

Paradigm. Moving dots paradigm with cues emphasizing Speed (SN for “schnell”), both speed and accuracy, that is, Neutral (NE), or Accuracy “AK” for “akkurat”).

Figure 2.

Behavioral results. Cueing for speed leads to a decrease in response time and an increase in errors.

Figure 3.

A, The LBA model. In the LBA model, the decision to response either “left” or “right” is modeled as a race between two accumulators. Activation in each accumulator begins at a random point between zero and A and increases at a rate that depends on the match between the stimulus and response. A response is given by whichever accumulator first reaches the threshold b, and the predicted response times depend on the time taken to reach that threshold. B, Model fits. Quantiles estimated from data (circles) and predicted by the LBA model (crosses with lines) separately for young and elderly participants. The three panels show data from three different response caution conditions. Within each panel, the upper lines and symbols show quantile estimates for correct responses, and the lower set for incorrect responses. The data and model predictions were averaged across participants and across left vs right stimuli.

Figure 4.

Target areas. Location of brain areas for which connectivity was quantified.

Figure 5.

Tract strength vs response caution. Average tract strength vs response caution separately for three emphasis conditions (panels) for elderly (red) and young (black) participants.