Global processing deficit in Alzheimer’s disease

Abstract

Several studies of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) reveal an impaired capacity to integrate visual elements into global pictures, leading to a deficit in global processing of visual information. The aim of this paper was to explore global and local processing in people with AD at non-advanced stage. The Global and Local Attention Test (AGL; from the original Spanish: AGL-Atención global y local) was administered to a group of 100 participants with a mean age of 75.36 years. Fifty of them were AD patients at a mild or moderate stage, while the remainder comprised healthy elders. The AGL provides two scores that indicate speed and accuracy in analyzing global and local figures. Participants had to indicate the figures where the target appeared at either global or local levels in a divided attention task. The results showed lower accuracy in the AD group compared with controls. Also in the AD group, and in line with previous findings, accuracy in detecting the target was much lower at the global level than at the local level, thereby confirming the expected deficit in global processing associated with AD. This deficit did not vary according to sex or age.