Abbas Mais, Szpiro Sarit F A, Karawani Hanin
Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Faculty of Social Welfare and Health Sciences, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.
Department of Special Education, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.
Sci Rep. 2024 Dec 28;14(1):30805. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-81154-y.
Age-related sensory declines are unavoidable and closely linked to decreased visual, auditory, and cognitive functions. However, the interrelations of these declines remain poorly understood. Despite extensive studies in each domain, shared age-related characteristics are complex and may not consistently manifest direct relationships at the individual level. We investigated the link between visual and auditory perceptual declines in healthy aging and their relation to cognitive function using six psychophysical and three cognitive tasks. Eighty young and older healthy adults participated, revealing a general age-related decline. Young adults consistently outperformed older adults in all tasks. Critically, the performance in visual tasks significantly correlated with performance in auditory tasks in older adults. This suggests a domain-general decline in perception, where declines in vision are related to declines in audition within individuals. Additionally, perceptual performance in older adults decreased monotonically year by year. Working memory performance significantly correlated with perceptual performance across both age groups and modalities, further supporting the hypothesis of a domain-general decline. These findings highlight the complex and interconnected nature of sensory and cognitive declines in aging, providing a foundation for future translational research focused on enhancing cognitive and perceptual abilities to promote healthy aging and ultimately improve the quality of life for older adults.
与年龄相关的感官衰退是不可避免的，并且与视觉、听觉和认知功能的下降密切相关。然而，这些衰退之间的相互关系仍知之甚少。尽管在每个领域都进行了广泛的研究，但与年龄相关的共同特征很复杂，在个体层面上可能并不总是表现出直接的关系。我们使用六项心理物理学任务和三项认知任务，研究了健康衰老过程中视觉和听觉感知衰退之间的联系及其与认知功能的关系。80名年轻和年长的健康成年人参与了研究，结果显示出与年龄相关的普遍衰退。在所有任务中，年轻人的表现始终优于老年人。关键的是，老年人在视觉任务中的表现与听觉任务中的表现显著相关。这表明在个体内部，感知存在领域一般性衰退，即视觉衰退与听觉衰退相关。此外，老年人的感知表现逐年单调下降。工作记忆表现在两个年龄组和两种模态中都与感知表现显著相关，进一步支持了领域一般性衰退的假设。这些发现突出了衰老过程中感官和认知衰退的复杂和相互关联的性质，为未来旨在提高认知和感知能力以促进健康衰老并最终改善老年人生活质量的转化研究奠定了基础。
