Cognitive Shifting Abilities in Younger and Older Individuals

Abstract

Cognitive flexibility refers to the ability to switch rapidly between different responses set. It is further sub divided into set shifting and cognitive shifting. While set shifting is considered to be automatic, cognitive shifting is considered to be conscious and strategic. Cognitive shifting can be assessed through a variety of linguistic and non-linguistic tasks. The non-linguistic tasks include stroop task, non-zero task etc. The alternating fluency task is a linguistic task, built in the same lines of generative naming. The only difference is that the participant has to rapidly alternate between two lexical categories, in other words they have to name a lexical item from first lexical category and then name a lexical item from the other lexical category. The current study was taken up with the aim of comparing cognitive shifting abilities in younger and older individuals by employing alternating fluency task. Three lexical category combinations (animals-vehicles, birds-common objects, fruits-vegetables) were considered and the task of participant was to name a lexical category from each combination (at once) within a period of two minutes. Each correct response was given a score of one when the participant could produce responses from both lexical categories given. Zero was given for partial and incorrect responses. Younger participants performed better, as compared to the older participants and the error responses were more older individuals showing that the cognitive shifting abilities reduced with aging.