Abstract
Investigating how the brain integrates multimodal information is critical for quantifying the effects of age on performance for tasks that rely on visual and auditory stimuli (e.g., driving or flying an aircraft). We report on how concurrent performance on a visuospatial task and a passive paired-stimulus auditory electroencephalography (EEG) paradigm were impacted by age. Outcome measures included response times and accuracy for a match-to-sample visuospatial task and event-related potentials (ERPs) derived from a 128-channel dense array EEG system. Older participants were less accurate and responded slower to the visuospatial task than younger participants, particularly in a high-workload condition. ERPs associated with cortical language processing areas showed that older participants displayed less sensory gating than the younger group for P50 and N100 ERP components. In contrast, pronounced sensory gating was found in the older participant group in the frontal cortex, which was driven by disproportionately larger N100 responses for the first stimulus. The present findings further the understanding of age-related neural changes and support the notion that a neural evaluation will one day reliably classify risk states for complex cognitive functions in older adults.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Preusser, D.F., Williams, A.F., Ferguson, S.A., Ulmer, R.G., Weinstein, H.B.: Fatal crash risk for older drivers at intersections. Accid. Anal. Prev. 30(2), 151–159 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1016/s0001-4575(97)00090-0
Bazargan, M., Guzhva, V.S.: Impact of gender, age and experience of pilots on general aviation accidents. Accid. Anal. Prev. 43(3), 962–970 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2010.11.023
COPA National Homepage. https://copanational.org/en/2017/02/22/2017-membership-survey-results/. Accessed 13 June 2020
National Transport Safety Board: Aviation Data and Stats Page. https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/data/Pages/AviationDataStats2017.aspx. Accessed 13 June 2020
Jones, L.A., Hills, P.J., Dick, K.M., Jones, S.P., Bright, P.: Cognitive mechanisms associated with auditory sensory gating. Brain Cogn. 102, 33–45 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2015.12.005
Freedman, R., et al.: Neurobiological studies of sensory gating in schizophrenia. Schizophr. Bull. 13(4), 669–678 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/13.4.669
Gjini, K., Burroughs, S., Boutros, N.N.: Relevance of attention in auditory sensory gating paradigms in schizophrenia. J. Psychophysiol. (2011). https://doi.org/10.1027/0269-8803/a000042
Major, S., Carpenter, K., Beyer, L., Kwak, H., Dawson, G., Murias, M.: The influence of background auditory noise on P50 and N100 suppression elicited by the paired-click paradigm. J. Psychophysiol. (2019). https://doi.org/10.1027/0269-8803/a000245
Lijffijt, M., et al.: P50, N100, and P200 sensory gating: relationships with behavioral inhibition, attention, and working memory. Psychophysiology 46(5), 1059–1068 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8986.2009.00845.x
Amenedo, E., Dıaz, F.: Automatic and effortful processes in auditory memory reflected by event-related potentials. Age-related findings. Electroencephalogr. Clin. Neurophysiol. Evoked Potentials Sect. 108(4), 361–369 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1016/s0168-5597(98)00007-0
Cheng, C.H., Baillet, S., Lin, Y.Y.: Region-specific reduction of auditory sensory gating in older adults. Brain Cogn. 101, 64–72 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2011.11.003
Kisley, M.A., Davalos, D.B., Engleman, L.L., Guinther, P.M., Davis, H.P.: Age-related change in neural processing of time-dependent stimulus features. Cogn. Brain. Res. 25(3), 913–925 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogbrainres.2005.09.014
Gmehlin, D., Kreisel, S.H., Bachmann, S., Weisbrod, M., Thomas, C.: Age effects on preattentive and early attentive auditory processing of redundant stimuli: is sensory gating affected by physiological aging? J. Gerontol. Series A Biomed. Sci. Med. Sci. 66(10), 1043–1053 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1093/gerona/glr067
Rodríguez-Aranda, C., Sundet, K.: The frontal hypothesis of cognitive aging: factor structure and age effects on four frontal tests among healthy individuals. J. Genet. Psychol. 167, 269–287 (2006). https://doi.org/10.3200/GNTP.167.3.269-287
Delorme, A., Makeig, S.: EEGLAB: an open source toolbox for analysis of single-trial EEG dynamics including independent component analysis. J. Neurosci. Methods 134(1), 9–21 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneumeth.2003.10.009
HydroCel Geodesic Sensor Net. https://www.egi.com/images/stories/manuals/Printed%20IFUs%20with%20New%20Notified%20Body/HC_GSN_channel_map_128_8403486-54_20181207.pdf
Roland, P.E.: Cortical regulation of selective attention in man. A regional cerebral blood flow study. J. Neurophysiol. 48(5), 1059–1078 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1152/jn.1982.48.5.1059
Knight, R.T.: Decreased response to novel stimuli after prefrontal lesions in man. Electroencephalogr. Clin. Neurophysiol. Evoked Potentials Sect. 59(1), 9–20 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1016/0168-5597(84)90016-9
TCT Research Manuals Page. https://www.trans-cranial.com/docs/cortical_functions_ref_v1_0_pdf.pdf. Accessed 13 June 2020
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank The NRC flight cognition laboratory for equipment assistance.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Turabian, M., Van Benthem, K., Herdman, C.M. (2020). Impairments in Early Auditory Detection Coincide with Substandard Visual-Spatial Task Performance in Older Age: An ERP Study. In: Stephanidis, C., Antona, M., Ntoa, S. (eds) HCI International 2020 – Late Breaking Posters. HCII 2020. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1294. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60703-6_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60703-6_14
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-60702-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-60703-6
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)