Does fluid intelligence protect from age-related decline in cognitive control ?

Age-related difficulties have been reported on proactive control whereas reactive control seems to remain intact. This study investigated the potential influence of fluid intelligence capacity on the age-related decline in proactive control. We used a working memory recognition paradigm involving proactive or reactive cognitive control by manipulating the interference level across items. 80 young adults (18-29 years old) and 80 healthy older adults (60-89 years old) were included. The main results revealed significant effects of age and fluid intelligence capacity on sensitivity to interference. As expected, reactive control performance remained intact with aging (similar interference effect in the two groups). In contrast, we observed a larger interference effect in the proactive condition in aging. Finally, older participants with similar level of fluid intelligence to young adults showed no proactive control age-related decrement. Beyond the fact that this study confirms the selective age-related decline in proactive control, it also indicates that the level of fluid intelligence influences the efficiency of proactive control in aging.