Aging and response interference across sensory modalities

Abstract

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.

Cross-modal interference-control is reduced in childhood but maintained in aging: A cohort study of stimulus- and response-interference in cross-modal and unimodal Stroop tasks.

“…This result is in line with fMRI data suggesting equivalent down-regulation of visual and auditory processing in older and younger adults during cross-modal attention (Guerreiro et al, 2015). However, this finding contradicts findings showing older adults may suppress audition while focusing on vision but not vice versa (Guerreiro, Adam, et al, 2014; Guerreiro, Anguera, et al, 2014; Van Gerven & Guerreiro, 2016). One explanation of differing findings proposed by Guerreiro et al (2015) is that asymmetrical effects (i.e., an ability to ignore audition while focusing on vision but not vice versa) are seen in tasks in which auditory and visual information are presented concurrently, but symmetrical effects (i.e., an ability to ignore both visual and auditory cross-modal distraction) might occur when information is presented sequentially.…”

“…There has not been a study of cross-modal Stroop effects in adults older than 40 years of age. However, in a thorough review of age-related distraction, Guerreiro, Murphy, and Van Gerven (2010) suggested that although older adults typically show enhanced interference in unimodal tasks, cross-modal interference appears equivalent across older and younger adults, particularly if irrelevant information is auditory (Guerreiro, Adam, & Van Gerven, 2014; Guerreiro, Anguera, Mishra, Van Gerven, & Gazzaley, 2014; Guerreiro, Murphy, & Van Gerven, 2013). This was found for studies using the irrelevant sounds task (Bell & Buchner, 2007; Belleville, Rouleau, Van der Linden, & Collette, 2003), the cross-modal Simon task (Proctor, Pick, Vu, & Anderson, 2005) and studies assessing memory for irrelevant auditory information (Murphy, McDowd, & Wilcox, 1999).…”

Selective Attention and Sensory Modality in Aging: Curses and Blessings

“…In a related vein, the frequency at which targets and distractors are presented may determine the modulatory effects in the corresponding cortical areas. A relatively low frequency of target and distractor presentation may explain why we found no significant attentional modulation of the voice-selective area (Guerreiro et al, 2014a ), whereas others did (e.g., Salo et al, 2015 ). Because we did find significant modulation of the scene-selective area at the same stimulus frequency, however, this may imply that different cortical areas require different stimulus frequencies to elicit a measurable modulatory response.…”

“…We have sought to replicate these findings in two tasks with a spatial component. In both of these tasks the location of a cue or distractor—which could be presented left or right—either did or did not correspond with the location of the target stimulus (target localization task; Guerreiro et al, 2012 ) or the location of the relevant response (i.e., left or right index finger in a response interference task; Guerreiro et al, 2014a ). Again, we developed visual and auditory versions of these tasks with visual, auditory, or no distraction.…”

Questions of age differences in interference control: When and how, not if?

“…Time of day can also play a role in the size of age differences: Most older adults are "morning types" who perform better in the morning than in the evening, and inhibitory function appears to be especially influenced by these circadian rhythms (Anderson et al, 2014;May and Hasher, 1998). Finally, Guerreiro et al (2010) have proposed that sensory modality may play an important role, although modality effects do not interact consistently with age and it is unclear what the boundary conditions might be (Guerreiro et al, 2012(Guerreiro et al, , 2013(Guerreiro et al, , 2014.…”