This study aims to investigate how older adults react to a failed-inhibition error while performing a stop-signal task. That is, whether elderly people would exhibit enlarged post-error slowing and whether such slowing revealed an adaptive process, maladaptive process, or a mixture of maladaptive followed by adaptive processes. This study also addresses if the post-error process might further interact with a stimulus repetition effect based on the memory retrieval explanation. A group of 34 younger adults (age range 20–30 years) and a group of 34 older adults (age range 60–80 years) were included for the analyses. The results of the current study supported a mixture model by showing that older adults exhibited a larger post-error slowing than younger adults, and their post-error slowing was initially accompanied by deceased accuracy that then increased on the subsequent trial. Furthermore, such post-error slowing on older adults only occurred in the trial condition where the stimulus was repeated from the previous trial suggesting a memory-based process (a form of negative priming) involved in post-error processes. The implication of the current finding is that older adults might maintain the ability to detect and monitor the response error, yet their post-error adjustment might require a much longer time to start functioning well after the initial detrimental orienting response to the error and the entire process was memory-based.

本研究旨在调查老年人在执行停止信号任务时对抑制失败错误的反应。也就是说，老年人是否会表现出更大的错误后减速，以及这种减速是否揭示了一种适应过程、适应不良过程或适应不良和适应过程的混合。这项研究还解决了错误后过程是否可能进一步与基于记忆检索解释的刺激重复效应相互作用。分析包括一组 34 名年轻人（年龄范围 20-30 岁）和一组 34 名老年人（年龄范围 60-80 岁）。目前的研究结果支持混合模型，表明老年人比年轻人表现出更大的错误后减速，他们的错误后放缓最初伴随着准确性的下降，然后在随后的试验中增加。此外，这种对老年人的错误后减慢仅发生在试验条件下，即从先前的试验中重复刺激，表明错误后过程涉及基于记忆的过程（一种负启动形式）。当前发现的含义是，老年人可能保持检测和监控响应错误的能力，但他们的错误后调整可能需要更长的时间才能在对错误的初始有害定向响应和整个过程是基于内存的。这种对老年人的错误后减慢仅发生在试验条件下，即从先前的试验中重复刺激，这表明错误后过程涉及基于记忆的过程（一种负启动形式）。当前发现的含义是，老年人可能保持检测和监控响应错误的能力，但他们的错误后调整可能需要更长的时间才能在对错误的初始有害定向响应和整个过程是基于内存的。这种对老年人的错误后减慢仅发生在试验条件下，即从先前的试验中重复刺激，这表明错误后过程涉及基于记忆的过程（一种负启动形式）。当前发现的含义是，老年人可能保持检测和监控响应错误的能力，但他们的错误后调整可能需要更长的时间才能在对错误的初始有害定向响应和整个过程是基于内存的。