S. Nordin et al., Olfactory event-related potentials in young and elderly adults: Evaluationof tracking task versus eyes open/closed recording, CHEM SENSE, 24(4), 1999, pp. 459-464
The purpose of the present study was to evaluate olfactory event-related po
tentials (OERPs) elicited by amyl acetate from subjects performing a visuom
otor tracking task compared with the no-task conditions of eyes open and ey
es closed. Task condition did not produce any reliable effects for any ampl
itude measure. Task type weakly influenced only PZ latency. Elder adults ev
inced smaller P2 and N1/P2 amplitudes and longer N1 and P2 latencies than y
oung adults. The results suggest that tracking task performance is not nece
ssary to obtain robust OERPs from normal subjects of a wide age range.