The neural specificity of interference resolution in phonological, semantic, and visual domains at different ages

The question of whether cognitive control is specific to certain domains or domain-
general remains an extensively debated question at both cognitive and neural levels. This
study examined the neural substrates associated with resistance-to-interference (RI) in
phonological, semantic, and visual domains by using strictly matched tasks and determining
the domain-general or domain-specific manner in which aging affects the neural substrates
associated with RI. In an fMRI experiment, young and older participants performed a
similarity-judgment task with phonological, semantic, or visual interference build-up. For
both age groups, domain-specific RI effects were observed at the univariate level, with
increased involvement in the phonological domain of the right angular gyrus and the right
lingual gyrus, in the semantic domain of the bilateral inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), the bilateral
superior parietal and angular gyri and the left middle temporal gyrus, and in the visual domain
of the middle/superior frontal gyri and occipital gyri. At the multivariate level, although RI
effects could be decoded from neural patterns in the bilateral IFG for all domains and age
groups, between-domain prediction of RI conditions was associated with Bayesian evidence
for the null hypothesis. This study supports the domain-specificity of neural substrates
associated with RI while stressing its age-independency