SOURCE MONITORING DURING NAME RECOGNITION IN OLDER ADULTS - PSYCHOMETRIC AND ELECTROPHYSIOLOGICAL CORRELATES

The hypothesis that source monitoring in older adults is specifically related to frontal lobe function was tested. In a fame-judgment task, older adults' ability to monitor the source of name familiarity was in dependent of their short-term recognition ability. Source errors were not related to performance on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, a psych ometric index of frontal function, or to the initial orienting respons e of the contingent negative variation (CNV), a frontally based electr ophysiological measure, even though these ''frontal'' measures were re liably related to each other. Source error was predicted by the latter portion of the CNV, the expectancy response, and by the Benton Facial Recognition Test, a visuoperceptual task not typically linked to fron tal function. These data suggest that the accuracy of source attributi on in older adults depends on various attentional control processes, n ot all of which may be frontally based.