title: Preserved discrimination performance and neural processing during crossmodal attention in aging.
abstract: In a recent study in younger adults (19-29 year olds) we showed evidence that distributed audiovisual attention resulted in improved discrimination performance for audiovisual stimuli compared to focused visual attention. Here, we extend our findings to healthy older adults (60-90 year olds), showing that performance benefits of distributed audiovisual attention in this population match those of younger adults. Specifically, improved performance was revealed in faster response times for semantically congruent audiovisual stimuli during distributed relative to focused visual attention, without any differences in accuracy. For semantically incongruent stimuli, discrimination accuracy was significantly improved during distributed relative to focused attention. Furthermore, event-related neural processing showed intact crossmodal integration in higher performing older adults similar to younger adults. Thus, there was insufficient evidence to support an age-related deficit in crossmodal attention.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Physiology and Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States of America.
authors.forename: Jyoti
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mishra
authors.forename: Adam
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gazzaley
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D001288:Attention; D002490:Central Nervous System / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010775:Photic Stimulation