Inhibitory inefficiency and failures of intention activation: Age-related decline in the control of saccadic eye movements

Young and older adults' control of saccadic eye movements was compared usin g an antisaccade task, which requires the inhibition of a reflexive saccade toward a peripheral onset cue followed by an intentional saccade in the op posite direction. In 2 experiments, an age-related decline was found in the suppression of reflexive eye movements, as indicated by an increased propo rtion of saccades toward the cue, and a longer time needed to initiate corr ect antisaccades. The results from Experiment 2 suggested that older adults ' slower antisaccades may be explained partly in terms of increased failure s to maintain the cue-action representation at a sufficient activation leve l. The results suggest that the notion of selective preservation with age o f the ability to inhibit spatial responses does not apply to the active inh ibition of prepotent spatial responses.