Switching Between Attentional Demands – A Brief Report Comparing Findings from Younger and Older Adults

The increasing relevance to adapt quickly to changes in the environment is contrasted by an inverted U-shaped curve of task-switching abilities over the lifespan. While previous studies most commonly focused on switching between rules, modalities, and attributes, the process of switching between different attentional demands is somehow neglected. Therefore, the present study aims to fill this gap by applying a recently introduced paradigm on switching between attentional demands to younger and older adults. Within the present study, 116 younger adults (age: minmax: 18-30, M=22.31 years, SD=3.17; 85 women) and 93 older adults (age: minmax: 60-89, M=68.29 years, SD=6.18; 15 women) completed the Switching Attentional Demands-task (SwAD-task). The task enables to quantify single-task performance of selective and divided attention, but more important the ability of switching between these demands. Findings indicate faster response times in selective attention than divided attention for both groups. Furthermore, older adults showed longer response times in selective attention, divided attention, as well as switching attention, compared to their younger counterparts. Age-related changes are discussed by considering the frontal ageing hypothesis, processing-speed theory, as well as common factor theories of cognitive ageing. Furthermore, previous neurophysiological findings are taken into account to explain findings at hand.

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Stimulus Specific to Age-Related Audio-Visual Integration in Discrimination Tasks

i-Perception ◽

10.1177/2041669520978419 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 11 (6) ◽

pp. 204166952097841

Author(s):

Yanna Ren ◽

Zhihan Xu ◽

Sa Lu ◽

Tao Wang ◽

Weiping Yang

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Time Window ◽

Response Times ◽

Race Model ◽

Compensatory Mechanism ◽

Younger Adults ◽

Visual Integration ◽

Age Related ◽

Significant Difference ◽

The Mean

Age-related audio-visual integration (AVI) has been investigated extensively; however, AVI ability is either enhanced or reduced with ageing, and this matter is still controversial because of the lack of systematic investigations. To remove possible variates, 26 older adults and 26 younger adults were recruited to conduct meaningless and semantic audio-visual discrimination tasks to assess the ageing effect of AVI systematically. The results for the mean response times showed a significantly faster response to the audio-visual (AV) target than that to the auditory (A) or visual (V) target and a significantly faster response to all targets by the younger adults than that by the older adults (A, V, and AV) in all conditions. In addition, a further comparison of the differences between the probability of audio-visual cumulative distributive functions (CDFs) and race model CDFs showed delayed AVI effects and a longer time window for AVI in older adults than that in younger adults in all conditions. The AVI effect was lower in older adults than that in younger adults during simple meaningless image discrimination (63.0 ms vs. 108.8 ms), but the findings were inverse during semantic image discrimination (310.3 ms vs. 127.2 ms). In addition, there was no significant difference between older and younger adults during semantic character discrimination (98.1 ms vs. 117.2 ms). These results suggested that AVI ability was impaired in older adults, but a compensatory mechanism was established for processing sematic audio-visual stimuli.

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Evidence against preserved syntactic comprehension in healthy aging

10.1101/299883 ◽

2018 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Charlotte Poulisse ◽

Linda Wheeldon ◽

Katrien Segaert

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Processing Speed ◽

Semantic Processing ◽

Healthy Aging ◽

Semantic Information ◽

Syntactic Processing ◽

Younger Adults ◽

Age Related ◽

Processing Abilities ◽

Speed And Accuracy

AbstractWe investigated age-related differences in syntactic comprehension in young and older adults. Most previous research found no evidence of age-related decline in syntactic processing. We investigated elementary syntactic comprehension of minimal sentences (e.g. I cook), minimizing the influence of working memory. We also investigated the contribution of semantic processing by comparing sentences containing real verbs (e.g. I cook) versus pseudoverbs (e.g. I spuff). We measured the speed and accuracy of detecting syntactic agreement errors (e.g. I cooks, I spuffs). We found that older adults were slower and less accurate than younger adults in detecting syntactic agreement errors for both real and pseudoverb sentences, suggesting there is age-related decline in syntactic comprehension. The age-related decline in accuracy was smaller for the pseudoverb sentences, and the decline in speed was larger for the pseudoverb sentences, compared to real verb sentences. We suggest that syntactic comprehension decline is stronger in the absence of semantic information, which causes older adults to produce slower responses in order to make more accurate decisions. In line with these findings, performance for older adults was positively related to a measure of processing speed capacity. Taken together, we found evidence that elementary syntactic processing abilities decline in healthy ageing.

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Visual Perceptual Load Attenuates Age-Related Audiovisual Integration in an Audiovisual Discrimination Task

Frontiers in Psychology ◽

10.3389/fpsyg.2021.740221 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

Author(s):

Yanna Ren ◽

Hannan Li ◽

Yan Li ◽

Tao Wang ◽

Weiping Yang

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Discrimination Task ◽

Perceptual Load ◽

Response Times ◽

Race Model ◽

Audiovisual Integration ◽

Facilitation Effect ◽

Younger Adults ◽

Age Related ◽

Load Conditions

Previous studies confirmed that the cognitive resources are limited for each person, and perceptual load affects the detection of stimulus greatly; however, how the visual perceptual load influences audiovisual integration (AVI) is still unclear. Here, 20 older and 20 younger adults were recruited to perform an auditory/visual discrimination task under various visual perceptual-load conditions. The analysis for the response times revealed a significantly faster response to the audiovisual stimulus than to the visual stimulus or auditory stimulus (all p < 0.001), and a significantly slower response by the older adults than by the younger adults to all targets (all p ≤ 0.024). The race-model analysis revealed a higher AV facilitation effect for older (12.54%) than for younger (7.08%) adults under low visual perceptual-load conditions; however, no obvious difference was found between younger (2.92%) and older (3.06%) adults under medium visual perceptual-load conditions. Only the AV depression effect was found for both younger and older adults under high visual perceptual-load conditions. Additionally, the peak latencies of AVI were significantly delayed in older adults under all visual perceptual-load conditions. These results suggested that visual perceptual load decreased AVI (i.e., depression effects), and the AVI effect was increased but delayed for older adults.

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The P3 Parietal-To-Frontal Shift Relates to Age-Related Slowing in a Selective Attention Task

Journal of Psychophysiology ◽

10.1027/0269-8803/a000167 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 31 (2) ◽

pp. 49-66 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Eva-Maria Reuter ◽

Claudia Voelcker-Rehage ◽

Solveig Vieluf ◽

Franca Parianen Lesemann ◽

Ben Godde

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Selective Attention ◽

Response Times ◽

Flanker Task ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Compensatory Mechanism ◽

Attention Task ◽

Equal Distribution ◽

Age Related ◽

Related Potentials

Abstract. Older adults recruit relatively more frontal as compared to parietal resources in a variety of cognitive and perceptual tasks. It is not yet clear whether this parietal-to-frontal shift is a compensatory mechanism, or simply reflects a reduction in processing efficiency. In this study we aimed to investigate how the parietal-to-frontal shift with aging relates to selective attention. Fourteen young and 26 older healthy adults performed a color Flanker task under three conditions (incongruent, congruent, neutral) and event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured. The P3 was analyzed for the electrode positions Pz, Cz, and Fz as an indicator of the parietal-to-frontal shift. Further, behavioral performance and other ERP components (P1 and N1 at electrodes O1 and O2; N2 at electrodes Fz and Cz) were investigated. First young and older adults were compared. Older adults had longer response times, reduced accuracy, longer P3 latencies, and a more frontal distribution of P3 than young adults. These results confirm the parietal-to-frontal shift in the P3 with age for the selective attention task. Second, based on the differences between frontal and parietal P3 activity the group of older adults was subdivided into those showing a rather equal distribution of the P3 and older participants showing a strong frontal focus of the P3. Older adults with a more frontally distributed P3 had longer response times than participants with a more equally distributed P3. These results suggest that the frontally distributed P3 observed in older adults has no compensatory function in selective attention but rather indicates less efficient processing and slowing with age.

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Less Prevalence-induced Concept Change in Older Adults

10.31234/osf.io/uhcp7 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Sean Devine ◽

Cassandra Neumann ◽

David Levari ◽

Robert C Wilson ◽

Ben Eppinger

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Ethical Decision ◽

Ethical Decision Making ◽

Response Times ◽

The Elderly ◽

Younger Adults ◽

Age Related ◽

Experimental Approaches ◽

Concept Change ◽

Definition Of

Prevalence-induced concept change describes a cognitive mechanism by which someone’s definition of a concept shifts as the prevalence of instances of that concept changes. While this phenomenon has been established in young adults, it is unclear how it affects older adults. In this study, we explore how prevalence-induced concept change affects older adults’ lower-level, perceptual, and higher-order, ethical, decision-making. We find that older adults are less sensitive to prevalence-induced concept change than younger adults across both domains. Using a combination of computational and experimental approaches, we demonstrate that these age-related changes in judgements are driven by differences in response times between young and old adults, reflecting the time-sensitive and motivation-dependent nature of concept change. Overall, we argue that older adults’ concept spaces may be less flexible than younger adults’ in a changing world, which can make the elderly less sensitive to biases in their judgement.

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Verbal Working Memory in Older Adults: The Roles of Phonological Capacities and Processing Speed

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/2016_jslhr-h-15-0404 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 59 (6) ◽

pp. 1520-1532 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Susan Nittrouer ◽

Joanna H. Lowenstein ◽

Taylor Wucinich ◽

Aaron C. Moberly

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Working Memory ◽

Phonological Awareness ◽

Serial Recall ◽

Processing Speed ◽

Response Times ◽

Digit Span ◽

Age Groups ◽

Verbal Working Memory ◽

Age Related

Purpose This study examined the potential roles of phonological sensitivity and processing speed in age-related declines of verbal working memory. Method Twenty younger and 25 older adults with age-normal hearing participated. Two measures of verbal working memory were collected: digit span and serial recall of words. Processing speed was indexed using response times during those tasks. Three other measures were also obtained, assessing phonological awareness, processing, and recoding. Results Forward and reverse digit spans were similar across groups. Accuracy on the serial recall task was poorer for older than for younger adults, and response times were slower. When response time served as a covariate, the age effect for accuracy was reduced. Phonological capacities were equivalent across age groups, so we were unable to account for differences across age groups in verbal working memory. Nonetheless, when outcomes for only older adults were considered, phonological awareness and processing speed explained significant proportions of variance in serial recall accuracy. Conclusion Slowing in processing abilities accounts for the primary trajectory of age-related declines in verbal working memory. However, individual differences in phonological capacities explain variability among individual older adults.

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A multimodal analysis of sustained attention in younger and older adults

10.31234/osf.io/xzbft ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Matthew Kyle Robison ◽

Nathaniel T. Diede ◽

Jessica Nicosia ◽

Hunter Ball ◽

Julie Bugg

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Reaction Time ◽

Sustained Attention ◽

Processing Speed ◽

Cognitive Aging ◽

Self Report ◽

Time Data ◽

Younger Adults ◽

Age Related ◽

Pupillary Responses

Age-related cognitive decline has been attributed to processing speed differences, as well as differences in executive control and response inhibition. However, recent research has shown that healthy older adults have intact, if not superior, sustained attention abilities compared to younger adults. The present study used a combination of reaction time, thought probes, and pupillometry to measure sustained attention in samples of younger and older adults. The reaction time data revealed that, while slightly slower overall, older adults sustained their attention to the task better than younger adults, and did not show a vigilance decrement. Older adults also reported fewer instances of task-unrelated thoughts and reported feeling more motivated and alert than younger adults, despite finding the task more demanding. Additionally, older adults showed larger, albeit later-peaking, task-evoked pupillary responses, corroborating the behavioral and self-report data. Finally, older adults did not show a shallowing of task-evoked pupillary responses across time, corroborating the finding that their reaction times also did not change across time. The present findings are interpreted in light of processing speed theory, resource-depletion theories of vigilance, and recent neurological theories of cognitive aging.

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Age-Related Differences in Motivational Integration and Cognitive Control

10.31234/osf.io/a96nw ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Debbie Marianne Yee ◽

Sarah L Adams ◽

Asad Beck ◽

Todd Samuel Braver

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Decision Making ◽

Cognitive Control ◽

Task Performance ◽

Cognitive Task ◽

Monetary Reward ◽

Potential Candidate ◽

Younger Adults ◽

Age Related ◽

Cognitive Task Performance

Motivational incentives play an influential role in value-based decision-making and cognitive control. A compelling hypothesis in the literature suggests that the brain integrates the motivational value of diverse incentives (e.g., motivational integration) into a common currency value signal that influences decision-making and behavior. To investigate whether motivational integration processes change during healthy aging, we tested older (N=44) and younger (N=54) adults in an innovative incentive integration task paradigm that establishes dissociable and additive effects of liquid (e.g., juice, neutral, saltwater) and monetary incentives on cognitive task performance. The results reveal that motivational incentives improve cognitive task performance in both older and younger adults, providing novel evidence demonstrating that age-related cognitive control deficits can be ameliorated with sufficient incentive motivation. Additional analyses revealed clear age-related differences in motivational integration. Younger adult task performance was modulated by both monetary and liquid incentives, whereas monetary reward effects were more gradual in older adults and more strongly impacted by trial-by-trial performance feedback. A surprising discovery was that older adults shifted attention from liquid valence toward monetary reward throughout task performance, but younger adults shifted attention from monetary reward toward integrating both monetary reward and liquid valence by the end of the task, suggesting differential strategic utilization of incentives. Together these data suggest that older adults may have impairments in incentive integration, and employ different motivational strategies to improve cognitive task performance. The findings suggest potential candidate neural mechanisms that may serve as the locus of age-related change, providing targets for future cognitive neuroscience investigations.

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Internet Navigation Skills for Financial Management: Associations with Age, Neurocognitive Performance, and Functional Capacity

10.31234/osf.io/q46r8 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Samina Rahman ◽

Victoria Kordovski ◽

Savanna Tierney ◽

Steven Paul Woods

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Functional Capacity ◽

Financial Management ◽

Internet Banking ◽

Online Banking ◽

Neurocognitive Performance ◽

Younger Adults ◽

Neurocognitive Functions ◽

Age Related ◽

Use Factors

Objective: Online banking is becoming increasingly common among older adults, whomay experience difficulties effectively navigating this instrumental technology. Thisstudy examined age effects on a performance-based Internet banking task and itsassociation with neurocognitive ability and functional capacity in older and youngeradults. Method: Thirty-five older adults and 50 younger adults completed anexperimenter-controlled online banking measure in which they independentlyperformed a series of naturalistic financial tasks (e.g., account transfers, bill paying).Participants also completed a standardized battery of neuropsychological tests andmeasures of functional capacity. Results: Older adults were markedly slower and lessaccurate in completing the Internet-based banking task, which was not confounded byother demographic, mood, or computer use factors. Higher scores on measures ofneurocognition and financial functional capacity were both strongly associated withhigher Internet-based banking task accuracy scores and quicker completion times inthe older, but not the younger adults. Conclusions: Findings suggest that older adultsexperience difficultly quickly and accurately navigating online banking platforms, whichmay be partly related to age-related declines in neurocognitive functions and basicfinancial capacity. Future studies might examine whether neurocognitive approaches toremediation and compensation can be used to improve online banking capacity inolder adults.

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Positive Emodiversity Buffers the Association Between Stress and Depressive Symptoms

Innovation in Aging ◽

10.1093/geroni/igaa057.2250 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽

pp. 653-653

Author(s):

Lizbeth Benson ◽

Anthony Ong

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Depressive Symptoms ◽

Life Span ◽

Daily Diary ◽

National Study ◽

Younger Adults ◽

Shannon's Entropy ◽

Daily Experiences ◽

Age Related ◽

Optimal Functioning

Abstract Intensive measurements of individuals’ experiences allow for identifying patterns of functioning that may be markers of resilience, and whether such patterns differ across the life span. Using 8 daily diary reports collected in the second burst of the National Study of Daily Experiences (NSDE, n=848, age 34-84; 55%female), we examined whether positive emodiversity (Shannon’s entropy) attenuated the association between cumulative stressor exposure and depressive symptoms, and age-related differences therein. Results indicated age moderated the extent to which positive emodiversity attenuated the association between stress and depressive symptoms (b=0.11, p < .05). The attenuated association was strongest for younger adults with higher positive emodiversity, compared to those with lower positive emodiversity. For older adults, the association between stress and depressive symptoms was relatively similar regardless of their positive emodiversity. Implications pertain to for whom and in what contexts specific types of dynamic emotion experiences may promote optimal functioning and resilience.

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