Age-Related Effects on Crossmodal Switching: An Event-Related Potential Study

Poster Session F - Tuesday, April 16, 2024, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Sheraton Hall ABC

Shulan Hsieh¹, Wen-Hsin Wu¹, Pi-Chun Huang¹, Ludivine Schilis², Iring Koch², Stephan Denise²; ¹National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan, ²RWTH Aachen University, Germany

The human experience is inherently multisensory, with the integration of sensory information playing a crucial role in perception and behavioral performance. As individuals age, there is a decline in basic auditory and visual processing abilities, prompting questions about the impact on crossmodal switching with age. This study recruited a total of 72 participants, including 36 younger adults (18-26 yrs.) and 36 older adults (63-80 yrs.), using a cued crossmodal attention switching paradigm. Visual and auditory targets were simultaneously presented on congruent or incongruent sides, requiring participants to judge the relevant modality target's location based on cues. EEG recordings were collected during task performance. Results, based on the formal analysis of 28 older adults and 34 younger adults, indicated that older adults exhibited longer reaction times and more errors. Mixing costs (single task vs. mixed-task block) and switch costs (repeated vs. switch trial in mixed-task block) were more prominent in older adults. Event-related potential components, including N1, N2, P3, and LRP, reflected age-related effects on mixing costs, particularly on N2 and LRP onset latency. This suggests that older adults faced challenges in resisting interference from other modalities, leading to delayed response selection, especially during auditory trials. These findings suggested that older adults struggle more with visual distractors, influencing the processing of auditory trials. These findings align with previous research highlighting the difficulty older adults face in filtering out visual distractions.

Topic Area: ATTENTION: Multisensory