Adapting cognitive control to local–global implicit temporal predictability: A lifespan investigation from 5 to 88 years old

Adaptive cognitive control (ACC) involves behavioral adjustments to environmental changes and can be instantiated by implicit knowledge, including temporal predictability of task-relevant events. For example, our past driving experiences might inform us that yellow traffic signals generally last between 3 and 6 s. This information, gathered from a long-term history of similar situations, implicitly allows us to anticipate and decide whether to accelerate or brake based on the current context. Adaptability occurs by extracting local or global statistical contingencies in events’ temporal structure, leading to faster responses for longer S1–S2 stimulus delays, known as the foreperiod effect, and longer reaction times in long- compared to short-biased contexts, respectively. This study aimed to examine age changes in local- and global-based ACC across the lifespan from 5 to 88 years of age (N = 608, 223 males, age: M = 34.8, SD = 22.1). The Dynamic Temporal Prediction task was used to assess behavioral adaptation to local/global temporal regularities manipulating list-wide the short–long percentage of S2 preparatory intervals. The results suggest distinct developmental trajectories for local- and global-based ACC. Both establish early (at 5–6 years) and progressively improve until adulthood (30–39 years). However, their efficiency declines with age, starting at different decades: from 40 years onward for local-based ACC and from 60 years onward for global-based ACC. These results support the idea that ACC relies on lower level abilities (e.g., associative learning), but it can be implicitly shaped by both local and global temporal prediction through domain-general processes implying inhibitory control and flexibility. Adaptive cognitive control, the ability to implicitly modulate cognitive resources as a function of environmental regularities such as temporal patterns, exhibits age changes across the lifespan. Specifically, it emerges during the preschool period (5–6 years), progresses through adulthood, and experiences a decline in efficiency as individuals age (from age 40 onward). The efficiency of adaptive cognitive control based on global (i.e., list-wide S1–S2 temporal probability) versus local (i.e., adjacent S1–S2 temporal probability) temporal predictability is reduced in younger and older participants. This observation hints at the involvement of distinct underlying abilities, indicating lower level skills and higher level capacities, respectively. The critical developmental periods for supporting adaptive cognitive control suggest specific age-related changes in underlying abilities, which could benefit from interventions—such as implicit temporal learning in young children and implicit cognitive flexibility in older people. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)