Schedule of Events | Symposia

Feedback sensitivity in younger and older adults: Effects of social content and valence on time estimation and event-related potentials

Poster Session A - Saturday, March 29, 2025, 3:00 – 5:00 pm EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Lindsay A. Santacroce¹ (lsantacroce@torontomu.ca), Santhiya Purohit¹, Kieryn E. A. Carlse¹, Ben J. Dyson², Julia Spaniol¹; ¹Toronto Metropolitan University, ²University of Alberta

Navigating social environments requires attending to feedback, both positive and negative, and adjusting behaviour accordingly. Prior research in younger adults has found that negative and social feedback have stronger effects on brain and behaviour than positive and nonsocial feedback, respectively. However, little is known about age-related changes in feedback sensitivity, although theories of lifespan development might suggest reduced sensitivity to feedback overall and differential sensitivity to feedback valence and social content in older adults. The current study recorded electroencephalogram while younger and older adults completed a time estimation task in which they estimated the passing of one second and received positive or negative feedback from social or nonsocial sources. The behavioural results revealed greater estimation adjustments following negative vs. positive feedback, suggesting greater sensitivity to negative stimuli, and overall better performance with social vs. nonsocial feedback. Surprisingly, there were no age differences in the behavioural results. Event-related potential results, however, revealed age-related differences in the neural processing of feedback. Younger, but not older, adults showed greater sensitivity to negative feedback, as reflected in a later P2 component for negative compared to positive feedback. Both age groups exhibited increased neural processing of social feedback, as indicated by a later P300 component for social compared to nonsocial feedback. These findings suggest that feedback processing may be sensitive to age-related change.

Topic Area: EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Development &aging