Poliakoff E, Ashworth S, Lowe C, Spence C
School of Psychological Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK.
Neuropsychologia. 2006;44(4):507-17. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2005.07.004. Epub 2005 Aug 11.
We investigated whether ageing affects crossmodal selective attention (the ability to focus on a relevant sensory modality and ignore an irrelevant modality) and the spatial constraints on such selective processing. Three groups of 24 participants were tested: Young (19-25 years), Young-Old (65-72 years) and Old-Old (76-92 years). The participants had to judge the elevation of vibrotactile targets (upper/index finger and lower/thumb), presented randomly to either hand while ignoring concurrent visual distractors. In a second task, the role of the target and distractor modalities was reversed. Crossmodal selective attention was assessed by comparing performance in the presence versus absence of distractors. Spatial constraints on selective attention were also investigated by comparing the effect of distractors presented on the same versus opposite side as the target. When attending to touch, the addition of visual distractors had a significantly larger effect on error rates in both of the older groups as compared to the Young group. This indicates that ageing has a detrimental effect on crossmodal selective attention. In all three age groups, performance was impaired when the target and distractor were presented at incongruent as compared to congruent elevations in both tasks. This congruency effect was modulated by the relative spatial location of the target and distractor in certain conditions for the Young and the Young-Old group. That is, participants in the two younger age groups found it harder to attend selectively to targets in one modality, when distractor stimuli came from the same side rather than from the opposite side. However, no significant spatial modulation was found in the Old-Old group. This suggests that ageing may also compromise spatial aspects of crossmodal selective attention.
我们研究了衰老是否会影响跨通道选择性注意（即专注于相关感觉通道并忽略不相关通道的能力）以及这种选择性加工的空间限制。对三组共24名参与者进行了测试：年轻人（19 - 25岁）、年轻老年人（65 - 72岁）和年老老年人（76 - 92岁）。参与者必须判断随机出现在任一只手上的振动触觉目标（食指上侧/下侧和拇指上侧/下侧）的高度，同时忽略同时出现的视觉干扰物。在第二项任务中，目标和干扰物通道的作用进行了互换。通过比较有干扰物和无干扰物时的表现来评估跨通道选择性注意。还通过比较与目标同侧和异侧呈现的干扰物的影响来研究选择性注意的空间限制。当专注于触觉时，与年轻组相比，添加视觉干扰物对两个老年组的错误率影响显著更大。这表明衰老对跨通道选择性注意有不利影响。在所有三个年龄组中，与两项任务中目标和干扰物呈现高度一致相比，当它们呈现不一致时，表现都会受损。在某些条件下，对于年轻组和年轻老年组，这种一致性效应受目标和干扰物相对空间位置的调节。也就是说，当干扰刺激来自同一侧而非相反侧时，两个较年轻年龄组的参与者发现更难选择性地专注于一种通道中的目标。然而，在年老老年组中未发现显著的空间调节。这表明衰老可能也会损害跨通道选择性注意的空间方面。
