Information processing becomes slower and predominantly serial in aging: Characterization of response-related brain potentials in an auditory–visual distraction–attention task

• Healthy young, middle-aged and old adults performed an auditory–visual task.
• Response-locked direct ERP activity was evaluated for the first time using this task.
• Response speed decreased with aging, while level of performance remained stable.
• Inter-peak latencies showed an age-related tendency to an enhanced serial processing.
• A distraction effect was found in performance for the three age groups.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of aging and attentional capture provoked by novel auditory stimuli on behavior (reaction time [RT], hits) and on response-related brain potentials (preRFP, CRN, postRFP, parietalRP) to target visual stimuli. Twenty-two young, 27 middle-aged, and 24 old adults performed an auditory–visual distraction–attention task. The RTs and latencies of preRFP, postRFP and parietalRT were longer in old and middle-aged than in young participants, reflecting the well-established age-related slowing of processing and performance. The inter-peak latencies (P3b-preRFP, preRFP-parietalRP, parietalRP-postRFP) were also longer in old and middle-aged than in young participants, further indicating an age-related tendency to increased predominance of serial (rather than parallel) processing of information, and that preRFP, CRN, postRFP, and parietalRP represent different cognitive processes from those indexed by the stimulus-related P3b. Finally, a distraction effect in performance (all three groups) and in postRFP latency (only middle-aged group) was also observed.