Aging redirects prior expectations from perception to action

Abstract

Aging profoundly reshapes how the brain integrates sensory evidence with prior expectations during perceptual decision-making. Combin ing behavioural modelling with high-density EEG, we show that older adults assign greater weight on prior information, resulting in stronger decisional bias and reduced sensory precision under probabilistic cues. Neural dynamics revealed a breakdown of anticipatory tuning in visual alpha rhythms, supporting sensory preparation in youth, alongside enhanced central beta activity, indicating a shift toward pre-emptive motor engagement aligned with expected responses. A data-driven decomposition further showed that, whereas prior-driven behaviour in younger adults emerges from a flexible interplay between sensory and executive oscillatory systems, it becomes dominated in aging by a rigid, response-centred mode. Together, these findings uncover a large-scale reconfiguration of predictive computations with age, marking a transition from adaptive sensory-executive coordination to a more automatized, action-oriented predictive strategy.