Sustained Auditory Attentional Load Decreases Audiovisual Integration in Older and Younger Adults.

Yanna Ren,Weiping Yang,Yawei Hou,Jiayu Huang,Yanling Ren,Tao Wang,Fanghong Li

doi:10.1155/2021/4516133

Yanna Ren, Weiping Yang + Show 5 more

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https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/4516133

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Abstract

The modulation of attentional load on the perception of auditory and visual information has been widely reported; however, whether attentional load alters audiovisual integration (AVI) has seldom been investigated. Here, to explore the effect of sustained auditory attentional load on AVI and the effects of aging, nineteen older and 20 younger adults performed an AV discrimination task with a rapid serial auditory presentation task competing for attentional resources. The results showed that responses to audiovisual stimuli were significantly faster than those to auditory and visual stimuli (AV > V ≥ A, all p < 0.001), and the younger adults were significantly faster than the older adults under all attentional load conditions (all p < 0.001). The analysis of the race model showed that AVI was decreased and delayed with the addition of auditory sustained attention (no_load > load_1 > load_2 > load_3 > load_4) for both older and younger adults. In addition, AVI was lower and more delayed in older adults than in younger adults in all attentional load conditions. These results suggested that auditory sustained attentional load decreased AVI and that AVI was reduced in older adults.

Highlights

Individuals are constantly exposed to information from different sensory sources; they can select to attend to some of the available information and suppress useless information to identify outside events
The peak benefit was 63 ms for younger adults in the attentional load_4 condition, but no significant audiovisual integration (AVI) was found for older adults. These results indicated that AVI decreased with the addition of attentional load and that AVI was lower in older adults than in younger adults under all attentional load conditions
The results showed that AVI was decreased and delayed with the addition of sustained auditory attentional load

Summary

Introduction

Individuals are constantly exposed to information from different sensory sources; they can select to attend to some of the available information and suppress useless information to identify outside events. The procedure that integrates information from different sensory sources is called multisensory integration [1, 2]. Studies have found that responses to audiovisual stimuli were faster and more accurate than those to auditory-only or visual-only stimuli, and this process has been called audiovisual integration (AVI) [3,4,5]. According to the “perceptual load theory,” if the cognitive demand is higher for one task, less attentional resources will be left to process other tasks [7, 8]. Under high cognitive demand (high attentional load), how individuals integrate available auditory and visual information has seldom been investigated

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