In recent years, the use of implicit mechanisms based on statistical learning (SL) has emerged as a strong factor in biasing visuospatial attention, so that target selection is improved at frequently attended locations and distractor filtering is facilitated at frequently suppressed locations. Although these mechanisms have been consistently described in younger adults, similar evidence in healthy aging is scarce. Therefore, we studied the learning and persistence of SL of target selection and distractor suppression in younger and older adults in visual search tasks where the frequency of target (Experiment 1) or distractor (Experiment 2) was biased across spatial locations. The results show that SL of target selection was preserved in the older adults so, similar to their younger counterparts, they showed a strong and persistent advantage in target selection at locations more frequently attended. However, unlike young adults, they did not benefit from implicit SL of distractor suppression, so that distractor interference was maintained throughout the experiment independently of the contingencies associated with distractor locations. Taken together, these results provide novel evidence of distinct developmental patterns for SL of task-relevant and task-irrelevant visual information, likely reflecting differences in the implementation of proactive suppression attentional mechanisms between younger and older adults.

Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic has forced significant changes in clinical practice. Psychologists and neuropsychologists had to modify their settings to assess patients’ abilities, switching from an in-person modality to a remote setting by using video calling platforms. Consequently, this change brought about the need for new normative data tailored to remote settings. Aim and methods The study aimed to develop normative data for the online assessment of neuropsychological memory tests and to compare it with the published norms obtained in standard settings. Two hundred and four healthy Italian volunteers performed three verbal memory tests through the Google Meet platform: the Digit Span (Backward and Forward), the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning, and the Verbal Paired Associated Learning Test. Results This research provides specific norms that consider the influence of demographic characteristics. Their comparison with published norms shows a medium to high agreement between systems. The present study provides a reference for the clinical use of neuropsychological instruments to assess verbal memory in a remote setting and offers specific recommendations.

No abstract

No abstract