Abstract
This study aimed to elucidate the underlying neural sources of near transfer after a multidomain cognitive training in older participants in a visual search task. Participants were randomly assigned to a social control, a no-contact control and a training group, receiving a 4-month paper-pencil and PC-based trainer guided cognitive intervention. All participants were tested in a before and after session with a conjunction visual search task. Performance and event-related potentials (ERPs) suggest that the cognitive training improved feature processing of the stimuli which was expressed in an increased rate of target detection compared to the control groups. This was paralleled by enhanced amplitudes of the frontal P2 in the ERP and by higher activation in lingual and parahippocampal brain areas which are discussed to support visual feature processing. Enhanced N1 and N2 potentials in the ERP for nontarget stimuli after cognitive training additionally suggest improved attention and subsequent processing of arrays which were not immediately recognized as targets. Possible test repetition effects were confined to processes of stimulus categorisation as suggested by the P3b potential. The results show neurocognitive plasticity in aging after a broad cognitive training and allow pinpointing the functional loci of effects induced by cognitive training.
Highlights
IntroductionSpatial visual attention as for example, measured by a visual search task is highly relevant in everyday life, for instance when searching for an information sign in the environment, for a friend in a crowded place, or for specific items in a store
Performance and event-related potentials (ERPs) suggest that the cognitive training improved feature processing of the stimuli which was expressed in an increased rate of target detection compared to the control groups
Spatial visual attention as for example, measured by a visual search task is highly relevant in everyday life, for instance when searching for an information sign in the environment, for a friend in a crowded place, or for specific items in a store
Summary
Spatial visual attention as for example, measured by a visual search task is highly relevant in everyday life, for instance when searching for an information sign in the environment, for a friend in a crowded place, or for specific items in a store. In laboratory studies visual search performance is mostly tested by presenting a target element in a display among different distractor elements. The target is more or less similar to the distractors, and is either present or not, which has to be indicated by the subjects. In such paradigms visual search performance was shown to decline with advanced age [1,2,3], especially, when the search task is difficult, for example, with high target distractor similarity (e.g., [4]). Age-related decline in visual search performance as well as in other cognitive functions, for example, attention [5], occur with high interindividual variability [6]. For instance education [8, 9], job demands [10, 11], free time activities [12], or physical fitness [13, 14] may prevent age-related cognitive decline
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