The functional interaction of visual-perceptual and response mechanisms during selective attention in young adults, young-old adults, and old-old adults

A response compatibility paradigm was employed to address how the perceptual and response activation processes functionally interact during selective attention and how they may be influenced by aging. The results showed that increasing the visual similarity of targets within response sets reduced the magnitude of the interference effect, but only with a narrow interletter distance. In a dissimilar condition, the magnitude of the interference effect did not vary with age. However, in a similar condition, the magnitude of the interference effect was larger for both young (18–30 years) and young-old adults (55–79 years) than for old-old adults (≥80 years). In contrast, all three groups showed similar facilitation effects. These results failed to provide support for the notion that enhanced spatial filtering of the target from the flankers produces a corresponding decrease in response competition. Rather, the decrease in the interference effect can be attributed to a functional interaction between the perceptual availability of partial information and the magnitude of response competition. The results also suggest that age does not impair response activation but that advanced age diminishes the availability of local, but not global, feature information.     

Comparing lexically guided perceptual learning in younger and older listeners

Numerous studies have shown that younger adults engage in lexically guided perceptual learning in speech perception. Here, we investigated whether older listeners are also able to retune their phonetic category boundaries. More specifically, in this research we tried to answer two questions. First, do older adults show perceptual-learning effects of similar size to those of younger adults? Second, do differences in lexical behavior predict the strength of the perceptual-learning effect? An age group comparison revealed that older listeners do engage in lexically guided perceptual learning, but there were two age-related differences: Younger listeners had a stronger learning effect right after exposure than did older listeners, but the effect was more stable for older than for younger listeners. Moreover, a clear link was shown to exist between individuals’ lexical-decision performance during exposure and the magnitude of their perceptual-learning effects. A subsequent analysis on the results of the older participants revealed that, even within the older participant group, with increasing age the perceptual retuning effect became smaller but also more stable, mirroring the age group comparison results. These results could not be explained by differences in hearing loss. The age effect may be accounted for by decreased flexibility in the adjustment of phoneme categories or by age-related changes in the dynamics of spoken-word recognition, with older adults being more affected by competition from similar-sounding lexical competitors, resulting in less lexical guidance for perceptual retuning. In conclusion, our results clearly show that the speech perception system remains flexible over the life span.     

Direct and indirect measures of memory for modality in young and older adults.

In 2 experiments, young and older adults demonstrated modality effects of similar magnitude in perceptual identification tasks. That is, both young and older adults demonstrated more repetition priming when study and test modalities matched than when they were different, suggesting that contextual information was equally available across age. However, when asked explicitly to retrieve modality information, older adults were less accurate than young adults. These results constitute evidence for a dissociation between direct and indirect measures of memory for modality information. They call into question hypotheses that memory impairment in old age is due to deficient encoding of contextual information and challenge current accounts of modality effects in repetition priming.     

Visual and haptic perception of postural affordances in children and adults

The present study compared how children and adults perceived affordances for upright stance when information was available either visually or haptically. 12 adults (mean age=26.5 years) and 13 children (mean age=4.5 years) examined an adjustable wooden platform that was randomly set at five different degrees of inclination (17, 22, 27, 33, 39). In the haptic condition, a masking curtain excluded vision of the platform and the surface was explored with a hand-held, wooden dowel. Results showed that for both children and adults there was closer agreement between perceptual judgments and action capabilities in the visual condition. Children overestimated their ability to stand on the steeper slopes, took equal amounts of time to make their judgments across all slopes, and were equally confident in their judgments across all slopes. In contrast, adults were more accurate than children at judging the affordances for upright stance, took longer to respond close to the actual action boundary, and were less confident close to the action boundary. Furthermore, adults took longer to respond and were less confident in the haptic condition whereas children had similar response times and were equally confident in both conditions. These important differences between adults and children in the perception of a basic affordance are discussed with reference to the coupling between perception and action at different phases of the lifespan and to the factors that might influence the organization of this coupling. Finally, implications are drawn for the prevention of accidents and the promotion of basic motor competence in children.     

Implicit and explicit memory in young and older adults

In three experiments, young and older adults were compared on both implicit and explicit memory tasks. The size of repetition priming effects in word completion and in perceptual identification tasks did not differ reliably across ages. However, age-related decrements in performance were obtained in free recall, cued recall, and recognition. These results, similar to those observed in amnesics, suggest that older adults are impaired on tasks which require conscious recollection but that memory which depends on automatic activation processes in relatively unaffected by age.     

The effect of age on rule-based category learning

An explicit, rule-based, category-learning task with abstract visual stimuli was administered to 50 healthy older adults and 48 younger adults. Accuracy and reaction time (RT) were examined for the effects of age, perceptual abilities, rule memory, rule complexity, stimulus novelty, and response competition. Older adults performed at equivalent levels to younger adults when applying a simple rule, but showed performance decrements when applying a more complex rule. The age effect interacted with both stimulus novelty and response competition, and was not eliminated after controlling for basic perceptual abilities and rule memory. The authors suggest that older adults show category learning deficits in conditions that require enhanced cognitive control. These results are discussed in reference to the growing body of literature regarding age-related change in executive abilities and frontal lobe function.     

The Effect of Age on Rule-Based Category Learning

ABSTRACT

An explicit, rule-based, category-learning task with abstract visual stimuli was administered to 50 healthy older adults and 48 younger adults. Accuracy and reaction time (RT) were examined for the effects of age, perceptual abilities, rule memory, rule complexity, stimulus novelty, and response competition. Older adults performed at equivalent levels to younger adults when applying a simple rule, but showed performance decrements when applying a more complex rule. The age effect interacted with both stimulus novelty and response competition, and was not eliminated after controlling for basic perceptual abilities and rule memory. The authors suggest that older adults show category learning deficits in conditions that require enhanced cognitive control. These results are discussed in reference to the growing body of literature regarding age-related change in executive abilities and frontal lobe function.     

Conceptual and perceptual information both influence melody identification

Three processes have been identified as central to object identification: top-down processing, bottom-up processing, and lateral competition. Six experiments using the perceptual interference paradigm were conducted to assess the relative contributions of these three processes to melody identification. Significant interference was observed only when the target and the distracting information were difficult to distinguish both perceptually and conceptually. Lateral competition-the activation of specific distractor melodies--did not influence the magnitude of interference observed. These results suggest that bottom-up and top-down processes contribute more to melody identification than does lateral competition. The data are discussed in terms of the broader literature on object identification and the relationship between identifying melodies, spoken words, and visual objects.     

Object identification in preschool children and adults

We introduce computer-based methodologies for investigating object identification in 3- to 5-year-old children. In two experiments, preschool children and adults indicated when they could identify degraded pictures of common objects as those pictures either gradually improved or degraded in clarity. Clarity transformations were implemented in four ways: blurring, decreasing the picture's physical size, decreasing the pixel signal-to-noise ratio, and cropping. In Experiment 1, all age groups correctly identified objects at a more degraded state when those objects began moderately, as opposed to very, degraded and then clarified. This finding supports the notion that previous perceptual hypotheses interfere with object identification (i.e. the perceptual interference effect). In Experiment 2, children, but not adults, overestimated their ability to recognize objects in a degraded state when the object's identity was given to them beforehand. This suggests that for young children knowledge of the object's true identity cannot be ignored when evaluating their current perceptions. This is the first demonstration of the perceptual interference effect in children. We discuss both methodological and theoretical implications of the findings for research on object perception and theory of mind.     

Training and transfer effects of response inhibition training in children and adults

Response inhibition is crucial for mental and physical health but studies assessing the trainability of this type of inhibition are rare. Thirty‐nine children aged 10‐12 years and 46 adults aged 18‐24 years were assigned to an adaptive go/no‐go inhibition training condition or an active control condition. Transfer of training effects to performance on tasks assessing response inhibition, interference control, working memory updating, task‐switching, and non‐verbal fluid intelligence were assessed during 3‐ and 6‐month follow‐up sessions and/or an immediate post‐training session. Significant training improvements and positive transfer effects to a similar response inhibition task with other stimuli were observed for both children and adults. Reliable albeit short‐lived transfer effects were only found for the children, specifically to working memory updating and task switching. These results suggest some potential for response‐inhibition training programs to enhance aspects of cognitive functioning in children but not adults.     

Transitions in Visual Proprioception: A Cross-Sectional Developmental Study of the Effect of Visual Flow on Postural Control

In the present study, a moving room paradigm was used that characterized the developmental progression of the effects of visual perturbations on stance control in subjects (N = 39) from 5 months to 10 years of age. Kinematic (probability of recording sway, magnitude of sway response) and electromyographic (probability and patterns of muscle activation, muscle onset latencies) data were found that suggested that visual flow simulating sway activates organized postural muscle responses and results in subsequent sway in standing infants as young as 5 months of age, well before they are able to stand independently. In new walkers, there was an increase in the magnitude of the effect of the visual perturbation, suggesting a possible increase in reliance on visual information. The magnitude of sway decreased to very low levels in older children and adults. The large-amplitude responses observed in the youngest age groups may indicate an inability to switch from an unreliable to a reliable source of perceptual information or an inability to modulate the responses produced following the perturbations. With increasing age and experience, the ability to resolve the conflict increased, with adult subjects demonstrating little sway response.     

Similarity-based interference in a working memory numerical updating task: age-related differences between younger and older adults

Similarity among representations held simultaneously in working memory (WM) is a factor which increases interference and hinders performance. The aim of the current study was to investigate age-related differences between younger and older adults in a working memory numerical updating task, in which the similarity between information held in WM was manipulated. Results showed a higher susceptibility of older adults to similarity-based interference when accuracy, and not response times, was considered. It was concluded that older adults' WM difficulties appear to be due to the availability of stored information, which, in turn, might be related to the ability to generate distinctive representations and to the process of binding such representations to their context when similar information has to be processed in WM.     

Influences of different combinations of conceptual, perceptual, and structural similarity on stimulus-response compatibility

This study evaluated the hypothesis that an increase in set-level stimulus-response compatibility produces facilitation for congruent mappings and interference for incongruent mappings. The degree of set-level compatibility was manipulated by varying combinations of conceptual, perceptual, and structural similarity. Experiment 1 varied perceptual similarity, by combining two stimulus codes (spatial, verbal) with two response modalities (manual, vocal) for orthogonal spatial dimensions, which have structural similarity. The element-level mapping effect did not vary as a function of the code-modality relation, in contrast to findings obtained with parallel spatial dimensions, which also have conceptual similarity. Experiment 2 manipulated combinations of conceptual and perceptual similarity by combining vertical and horizontal stimulus and response orientations, using verbal or spatial stimuli and vocal responses. The element-level mapping effect was larger for parallel than orthogonal orientations, with congruent mappings showing facilitation and incongruent mappings showing interference. The largest effect was facilitation for parallel orientations with the verbal-vocal set, consistent with the view that perceptual similarity contributes to performance primarily when responding with the identity of the stimulus. Our results indicate that conceptual similarity, but not perceptual similarity, produces the facilitation/interference pattern suggestive of automatic activation of the corresponding response regardless of mapping.     

Aging and response interference across sensory modalities

Advancing age is associated with decrements in selective attention. It was recently hypothesized that age-related differences in selective attention depend on sensory modality. The goal of the present study was to investigate the role of sensory modality in age-related vulnerability to distraction, using a response interference task. To this end, 16 younger (mean age = 23.1 years) and 24 older (mean age = 65.3 years) adults performed four response interference tasks, involving all combinations of visual and auditory targets and distractors. The results showed that response interference effects differ across sensory modalities, but not across age groups. These results indicate that sensory modality plays an important role in vulnerability to distraction, but not in age-related distractibility by irrelevant spatial information.     

A common perceptual parameter for stair climbing for children,young and old adults

In this paper we examine whether a common perceptual parameter is available for guiding old adults, young adults and children in climbing the highest stair mountable in a bipedal fashion. Previous works have shown that the ratio between the height of the stair and the hip height was the body-scaled invariance adopted as information for selecting the highest stair by young adults [Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 10 (1984) 683-703] but not by older adults [Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 3 (1992) 691-697]. Indeed, for older adults additional bio-mechanical parameters needed to be added to the model due to their decrease in leg strength and flexibility.Up to now, no perceptual invariant has been identified yet for determining the relevant information used for guiding the stair climbing action for normal healthy people. We propose a new parameter as the angle defined by the ratio between the height of the stair and the distance taken from the feet to the top edge of the stair before the initiation of the movement. We show that this angle is the same for children, young adults and older adults despite the different kinematics of the motion, the anthropometrics and the skill ability exhibit by the participants. In summary we show that even when the climbability judgments, based on the simple ratio leg length-stair height, are influenced by differences in age, participants use a common perceptual variable when they are coordinating their stair climbing action.     

Elimination of the enhanced Simon effect for older adults in a three-choice situation: Ageing and the Simon effect in a go/no-go Simon task

In a Simon task, participants show better performance when the irrelevant stimulus location corresponds with the response location than when it does not, and this effect is typically greater for older adults than for younger adults. To study the effect of cognitive ageing in the Simon task, we compared young and old adults using two versions of the Simon task: (a) a standard visual Simon task, for which participants respond with left and right key-presses to the red and green colours of stimuli presented in left and right locations; (b) a go/no-go version of the Simon task, which was basically the same, except that the shape of the stimulus in one third of the trials indicates that no response is to be made. In both tasks, both age groups showed the Simon effect. The magnitude of the effect for the standard Simon task was greater for the older adults than for the younger adults. Nevertheless, the two groups showed an equivalent Simon effect in the go/no-go version of the Simon task. Reaction time distribution analyses revealed basically similar functions for both age groups: a decreasing pattern of the Simon effect in the standard task and an increasing pattern of the effect in the go/no-go version of the task. The results suggest that older adults find it more difficult to suppress an automatic activation of the corresponding response, though this automatic activation was reduced in situations where the response was frequently inhibited.     

Response-compatibility effects in children

The Eriksen Flanker task is a classic paradigm for investigating interference at the level of response compatibility. Several previous studies analyzed the ability of young children (starting at the age of four years) to ignore flanking distractors in children-specific variants of the task. However, in all published studies the interference took place at the perceptual level as well as on the level of response compatibility because the ‘compatible condition’ involved stimulus congruency as well as response compatibility. By confounding stimulus congruency and response compatibility, interference at the level of response programming and priming at the perceptual level cannot be distinguished: the observed flanker effects might not be the result of successfully ignoring but instead might just be explained due to priming. We tested 57 children aged between 7 and 12 years in a flanker variant in which all trials were perceptually incongruent but different at the level of response compatibility (compatible versus incompatible). Children showed a flanker effect (faster reaction times in response compatible trials) that was, however, in terms of the effect size, smaller than flanker effects reported in previous studies.     

First came the trees, then the forest: developmental changes during childhood in the processing of visual local-global patterns according to the meaningfulness of the stimuli

This study investigated how global and local perceptual processes evolve during childhood according to the meaningfulness of the stimuli. Children had to decide whether visually presented pairs of items were identical or not. Items consisted of global forms made up of local forms. Both global and local forms could represent either objects or nonobjects. In dissimilar pairs, items differed at one level (target level), while the other level included similar forms on both sides (irrelevant level). The results indicate an evolution from local preference at 4 years of age to adult-like global preference at 9 years of age. Moreover, as previously reported in adults, regardless of age, identification impaired performance when the irrelevant level was made of objects and the target level was made of nonobjects (interference). However, in younger children, this interference existed even when objects were present at all levels, suggesting that the strategy used to perform the comparison task also varied according to age.     

Material-specific perceptual interference for visual words and faces: implications for models of capacity limitations, attention, and laterality

Four experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis that perceptual interference effects would be greatest among items that are processed by the same hemisphere than among items processed by different hemispheres. Recognition of two peripheral faces, flanked on either side of a central item that also had to be identified, was worse when the item was a face than when the item was a word. The opposite results were obtained for peripheral word identification by naming (Experiment 1). Identical results were obtained when a nonsense form was substituted for the central face (Experiment 2). Since unfamiliar faces and nonsense forms are processed primarily by the right hemisphere and words are processed by the left, the results are consistent with the hypothesis. The interference effect was the same even when the central nonsense shape was identified by naming, suggesting that the locus of the effect is not at response selection (Experiment 3). Ignoring the central item only reduces the interference effects but does not eliminate it (Experiment 4). Although in general words were perceived better in the right visual field, and faces were perceived better in the left, small fluctuations in the magnitude but not in the direction of perceptual asymmetries were sometimes noted with changes in the central item. The fluctuations were usually opposite to those predicted by attentional models of perceptual asymmetries.     

Gender differences on the semantic flanker task using transposed-letter target words

Previous research has demonstrated that men and women are differentially influenced by irrelevant distractors. Other lines of evidence have suggested that increasing the perceptual load of a task reduces distractor interference for participants generally. The present study examined these effects using a semantic version of the flanker task; participants made speeded responses to category target words that were flanked by irrelevant distractors. The response mapping between the target and flanker words was either congruent (mapped to the same motor response) or incongruent (target word mapped to a different motor response to that of the flankers). Target words were presented either normally (e.g., table: low perceptual load) or with the beginning letters transposed (e.g., atble: high perceptual load). The results revealed that women showed a larger congruency effect than men but this was not due to greater interference on incongruent trials. While men and women made faster responses to normal than to transposed target words, this was similar in magnitude. The magnitude of the flanker effect for normal and transposed target words was significantly correlated in men but not in women. These findings are consistent with the view that women may process target words to a deeper level than men and therefore may engage in more conflict monitoring then men.