Abstract
Incoming information from multiple sensory channels compete for attention. Processing the relevant ones and ignoring distractors, while at the same time monitoring the environment for potential threats, is crucial for survival, throughout the lifespan. However, sensory and cognitive mechanisms often decline in aging populations, making them more susceptible to distraction. Previous interventions in older adults have successfully improved resistance to distraction, but the inclusion of multisensory integration, with its unique properties in attentional capture, in the training protocol is underexplored. Here, we studied whether, and how, a 4-week intervention, which targets audiovisual integration, affects the ability to deal with task-irrelevant unisensory deviants within a multisensory task. Musically naïve participants engaged in a computerized music reading game and were asked to detect audiovisual incongruences between the pitch of a song’s melody and the position of a disk on the screen, similar to a simplistic music staff. The effects of the intervention were evaluated via behavioral and EEG measurements in young and older adults. Behavioral findings include the absence of age-related differences in distraction and the indirect improvement of performance due to the intervention, seen as an amelioration of response bias. An asymmetry between the effects of auditory and visual deviants was identified and attributed to modality dominance. The electroencephalographic results showed that both groups shared an increase in activation strength after training, when processing auditory deviants, located in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. A functional connectivity analysis revealed that only young adults improved flow of information, in a network comprised of a fronto-parietal subnetwork and a multisensory temporal area. Overall, both behavioral measures and neurophysiological findings suggest that the intervention was indirectly successful, driving a shift in response strategy in the cognitive domain and higher-level or multisensory brain areas, and leaving lower level unisensory processing unaffected.
Highlights
Our cognitive system is constantly fed with information from multiple sensory channels
We examined how a training protocol that targets multisensory integration affects attentional capture by unisensory deviants within a multisensory task
The significant change to a more “cautious” response criterion after the training seems to be attributable to multisensory integration enhancements, by increasing the top-down readiness for dealing with a predicted incongruence
Summary
Our cognitive system is constantly fed with information from multiple sensory channels In this rich environment, to function effectively, it is important to select goal-relevant information and ignore irrelevant stimuli, while at the same time monitoring the environment for potential threats. To function effectively, it is important to select goal-relevant information and ignore irrelevant stimuli, while at the same time monitoring the environment for potential threats This is achieved by the interplay between top-down and bottom-up attentional processes (Itti and Koch, 2001; Corbetta and Shulman, 2002). Stimuli from different sensory modalities can be automatically integrated as a function of spatial and temporal correspondence, but multisensory integration can be modulated by top-down attentional selection (Talsma et al, 2010; Talsma, 2015). Relevant to the purpose of this study, the competition of uni-sensory and integrated multisensory stimuli for attentional selection and capture appears to be further influenced by aging (Downing et al, 2015; Broadbent et al, 2018)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
