Age‐Related Differences in Response Time Across Adolescence Reflect Premotor, but Not Motor, Processing Speed
= 1.73) completed a flanker task while EEG was recorded. We quantified the lateralized readiness potential (LRP) to fractionate RTs into premotor (stimulus-locked LRP [S-LRP]) and motor (response-locked LRP [R-LRP]) intervals. Both S-LRP and R-LRP latencies correlated with RT, but only S-LRP latency decreased with age. Mediation analysis confirmed a significant indirect effect of age on RT through S-LRP latency but not R-LRP latency, suggesting that faster processing speed among older adolescents stems from faster premotor-but not motor-processing. We demonstrate the utility of using LRP latencies to investigate domain-specific processing speed, highlighting directions for future work to link structural development research to functional measurements.
Authors
- Bruce D. Bartholow (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9234-6417)
- Bob McMurray (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6532-284X)
- Greg Hajcak
- William Slawson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0007-1446-9028)
Institutions
- University of Iowa (US)
- Santa Clara University (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Psychophysiology
- Published
- 2026-05-01
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.70313
- Primary Topic
- Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism