Adult developmental trajectories of pseudoneglect in the tactile, visual and auditory modalities.

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Adult developmental trajectories of pseudoneglect in the tactile, visual and auditory modalities. Joanna Brooks1, 2*, Stephen Darling3, Catia Malvaso2 and Sergio Della Sala4 1 Australian National University, Centre for Research on Ageing, Health and Wellbeing, Australia 2 University of Adelaide, School of Psychology, Australia 3 Queen Margaret University, Psychology and Sociology, School of Arts and Social Sciences, Scotland 4 University of Edinburgh, Human Cognitive Neuroscience, Psychology, Scotland Healthy young adults show a tendency to pay more attention to the left-hand side of space when conducting tasks of a spatial nature. This leftward bias is known as pseudoneglect (Bowers & Heilman, 1980). A similar bias has been found in representational tasks - including those involving working memory (i.e., 'representational pseudoneglect' - for review see Brooks, Della Sala, Darling, 2014). The developmental trajectory of this bias is unknown. In the current study younger participants aged between 18 and 38 years of age and older participants aged between 55 and 95 years conducted three spatial tasks: 1) visuospatial line bisection - participants were asked to bisect visually presented lines of different lengths at the perceived midpoint; 2) mental number line bisection in the absence of vision - participants were asked to listen to a pair of numbers (i.e., 24-76) and respond with the numerical midpoint between the pair; and 3) touch-driven tactile rod bisection in the absence of vision - participants were asked to feel the length of a wooden rod with their index finger and bisect the rod at the perceived centre. The results showed that both younger and older participants demonstrated pseudoneglect (leftward biases) in the visual, tactile and auditory modalities and that the magnitude of pseudoneglect for each group was influenced by factors such as task type (visuospatial, mental number line bisection, tactile rod bisection) and starting side (start left versus start right). We provide the first exploration of pseudoneglect across the full adult lifespan in different modalities and argue that pseudoneglect is a result of a right hemisphere attentional orienting process that is retained throughout the entire adult lifespan. Our results indicate that, contrary to current models of cognitive ageing, asymmetrical patterns of hemispheric activity may occur in older age. Keywords: Memory, Ageing, auditory, development, visual, tactile, spatial, pseudoneglect Conference: XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII), Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 27 Jul - 31 Jul, 2014. Presentation Type: Poster Topic: Attention Citation: Brooks J, Darling S, Malvaso C and Della Sala S (2015). Adult developmental trajectories of pseudoneglect in the tactile, visual and auditory modalities.. Conference Abstract: XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII). doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2015.217.00042 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 19 Feb 2015; Published Online: 24 Apr 2015. * Correspondence: Dr. Joanna Brooks, Australian National University, Centre for Research on Ageing, Health and Wellbeing, Canberra, Australia, Joanna.Brooks@adelaide.edu.au Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Joanna Brooks Stephen Darling Catia Malvaso Sergio Della Sala Google Joanna Brooks Stephen Darling Catia Malvaso Sergio Della Sala Google Scholar Joanna Brooks Stephen Darling Catia Malvaso Sergio Della Sala PubMed Joanna Brooks Stephen Darling Catia Malvaso Sergio Della Sala Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.