Age-Related Changes in Attentional Refocusing during Simulated Driving

Abstract

We recently reported that refocusing attention between temporal and spatial tasks becomes more difficult with increasing age, which could impair daily activities such as driving (Callaghan et al., 2017). Here, we investigated the extent to which difficulties in refocusing attention extend to naturalistic settings such as simulated driving. A total of 118 participants in five age groups (18–30; 40–49; 50–59; 60–69; 70–91 years) were compared during continuous simulated driving, where they repeatedly switched from braking due to traffic ahead (a spatially focal yet temporally complex task) to reading a motorway road sign (a spatially more distributed task). Sequential-Task (switching) performance was compared to Single-Task performance (road sign only) to calculate age-related switch-costs. Electroencephalography was recorded in 34 participants (17 in the 18–30 and 17 in the 60+ years groups) to explore age-related changes in the neural oscillatory signatures of refocusing attention while driving. We indeed observed age-related impairments in attentional refocusing, evidenced by increased switch-costs in response times and by deficient modulation of theta and alpha frequencies. Our findings highlight virtual reality (VR) and Neuro-VR as important methodologies for future psychological and gerontological research.

Changes in theta and alpha oscillatory signatures of attentional control in older and middle age

“…Abilities in switching between temporal and spatial attention have remained underinvestigated (Callaghan et al, 2017), despite dynamic refocusing of attention potentially being crucial for everyday activities such as driving (Callaghan et al, 2017;Huizeling et al, 2020;Torrens-Burton et al, 2020). Our recent findings show that older age groups are less efficient at switching from a temporal to a spatial focus of attention (Callaghan et al, 2017).…”

“…Visual attention processing is understudied in middle age. However, there is some evidence to suggest that attentional control is already less efficient in middle age compared to in young adults (Callaghan et al, 2017;Georgiou-Karistianis et al, 2006;Huizeling et al, 2020;Zhou, Fan, Lee, Wang, & Wang, 2011). The current study provides valuable novel insights into neural oscillatory signatures in middle age during attention switching.…”

“…These findings have important implications for future work, as they raise the question as to whether this recruitment can be enhanced with cognitive training programmes to improve compensation for functional decline. Improving older adults' attentional flexibility could improve their performance in everyday functions such as driving, where one is required to quickly switch between fast changing events in multiple surrounding locations (e.g., Huizeling et al, 2020).…”

EEG alpha and theta signatures of socially and non-socially cued working memory in virtual reality

“…In addition, to understand potential interactions between cue validity and cue type (person/stick) for each participant we subtracted the invalid condition from the valid condition for both cue types separately and then compared the magnitude of the difference. This statistical approach is recommended on the Fieldtrip website and has been implemented in previous work (Bögels et al, 2015;Huizeling et al, 2020;Wang et al, 2016), analysis scripts and data are available from OpenNeuro (https://openneuro.org/datasets/ds003702)…”

Visual Attention-Related Processing: Perspectives from Ageing, Cognitive Decline and Dementia

“…The real-world insights advocated by the aforementioned study could produce incredibly valuable applications considering driving cessation is a major life transition, with implications for health and well-being. Huizeling et al [ 7 ] enhance our understanding of the complexities of refocusing attention in such a naturalistic setting, presenting the first study to acquire task-related oscillatory data, using electroencephalography (EEG), from a subgroup of older adult participants to extend inferences based on simulated driving measures. The data support the pattern of age-related slowing of reaction times shown consistently in this collection of articles—in this instance, reflecting adjustments older adults make to their driving behaviour to accommodate deficient attentional control mechanisms.…”