Psychology Seminar - Dr Cliodhna Quigley

Psychology Seminar - Dr Cliodhna Quigley
-

This is a past event

Differential decline in attentional modulation of visual processing in healthy old age

Although cognitive ageing is an active area of research, it is not yet agreed upon which aspects of selective attention show decline in old age and, in cases of decline, at which stage of processing deficits emerge. In a series of experiments examining spatial and feature-selective attention, we compared older adults aged between 60 and 75 with younger adults (20-30 years). Electroencephalogram was used to measure the steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP), which allowed us to directly gauge the effect of selective attention on early visual processing.

I will present the results of experiments requiring either covert spatial selection of spatially separated stimuli, or feature-based selection of overlapping stimuli. The results point to a differential decline in the effect of selective attention on early visual processing. Spatial selective attention seems as good as unchanged in healthy old age, while feature-selective attention shows a decline that goes beyond slowed processing.

The commonalities and differences of the mechanisms underlying spatial and feature-selective attention are still under debate. The present results may contribute to our understanding, as the differentiated pattern of age-related change in tasks relying on spatial and non-spatial selection strongly suggests a fundamental difference.

Speaker
Dr Cliodhna Quigley
Hosted by
Dr Søren Andersen
Venue
T1 William Guild