Eye movements of young and older adults while reading with distraction

This article may not exactly replicate the final version published in the APA journal. It is not the copy of record.The authors used eye-tracking technology to examine young and older adults' online performance in the reading in distraction paradigm. Participants read target sentences and answered comprehension questions following each sentence. In some sentences, single-word distracters were presented in either italic or red font. Distracters could be related or unrelated to the target text. Online measures, including probability of fixation, fixation duration, and number of fixations to distracting text, revealed no age differences in text processing. However, young adults did have an advantage over older adults in overall reading time and text comprehension. These results provide no support for an inhibition deficit account of age differences in the reading in distraction paradigm, but are consistent with J. Dywan and W. E. Murphy's (1996) suggestion that older adults are less able than the young to distinguish target and distracter information held in working memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved

Young and Older Adults’ Reading of Distracters

Eye-tracking technology was employed to examine young and older adults' performance in the reading with distraction paradigm. Distracters of 1, 2, and 4 words that formed meaningful phrases were used. There were marked age differences in fixation patterns. Young adults' fixations to the distracters and targets increased with distracter length. This suggests that they were attempting to integrate the distracters with the sentence and had more and more difficulty doing so as the distracters increased in length. Young adults did have better comprehension of the sentences than older adults, and they also had better recognition memory for target words and distracters

Revealing language deficits following stroke: the cost of doing two things at once

This is an electronic version of an article published in Kemper, S., McDowd, J., Pohl, P., Herman, R., & Jackson, S. (2006). Revealing language deficits following stroke: the cost of doing two things at once. Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition, 13, 115-139. PM#16766346. Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition is available online at www.taylorandfrancis.comThe costs of doing two things were assessed for a group of healthy older adults and older adults who were tested at least 6 months after a stroke. A baseline language sample was compared to language samples collected while the participants were performing concurrent motor tasks or selective ignoring tasks. Whereas the healthy older adults showed few costs due to the concurrent task demands, the language samples from the stroke survivors were disrupted by the demands of doing two things at once. The dual task measures reveal long-lasting effects of strokes that were not evident when stroke survivors were assessed using standard clinical tools

Learning to Ignore Distracters

This is the author's accepted manuscript. This article may not exactly replicate the final version published in the APA journal. It is not the copy of record. The original publication is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0025578.Eye tracking has indicated that older and young adults process distracters similarly when reading single sentences. The present study extended this approach by presenting short paragraphs, sentence by sentence. Eye tracking measures included reading times per word, and the duration of the first fixation and total fixations to the distracters and target words. Comprehension was tested following each paragraph, and recognition of distracters and target words was assessed. The results indicated that young adults were able to learn to ignore the distracters as they read through the paragraphs, whereas older adults were less successful at learning to ignore the distracters

Understanding verbal fluency in healthy aging, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease

This is the author's accepted manuscript. This article may not exactly replicate the final version published in the APA journal. It is not the copy of record.• Objective: Verbal fluency measures are frequently part of batteries designed to assess executive function, but are also used to assess semantic processing ability or word knowledge. The goal of the present study was to identify the cognitive components underlying fluency performance. • Method: Healthy young and older adults, adults with Parkinson’s disease, and adults with Alzheimer’s disease performed letter, category, and action fluency tests. Performance was assessed in terms of number of items generated, clustering, and the time course of output. A series of neuropsychological assessments were also administered to index verbal ability, working memory, executive function, and processing speed as correlates of fluency performance. • Results: Findings indicated that regardless of the particular performance measure, young adults performed the best and adults with Alzheimer’s disease performed most poorly, with healthy older adults and adults with Parkinson’s disease performing at intermediate levels. The exception was the action fluency task, where adults with Parkinson’s disease performed most poorly. The time course of fluency performance was characterized in terms of slope and intercept parameters and related to neuropsychological constructs. Speed of processing was found to be the best predictor of performance, rather than the efficiency of executive function or semantic knowledge. • Conclusions: Together, these findings demonstrate that the pattern of fluency performance looks generally the same regardless of how performance is measured. In addition, the primary role of processing speed in performance suggests that the use of fluency tasks as measures of executive function or verbal ability warrants reexamination.This work was conducted with grant support from the Kansas City Life Sciences Institute. Additional support was provided by the Digital Electronics Core of the Center for Biobehavioral Neurosciences in Communication Disorders, grant number P30 DC-005803, for assistance with the development of the digital ink assessment

Dual-task costs while walking increase in old age for some, but not for other tasks: an experimental study of healthy young and elderly persons

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>It has been suggested in the past that the ability to walk while concurrently engaging in a second task deteriorates in old age, and that this deficit is related to the high incidence of falls in the elderly. However, previous studies provided inconsistent findings about the existence of such an age-related dual-task deficit (ARD). In an effort to explain this inconsistency, we explored whether ARD while walking emerges for some, but not for other types of task.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Healthy young and elderly subjects were tested under five different combinations of a walking and a non-walking task. The results were analysed jointly with those of a previous study from our lab, such that a total of 13 task combinations were evaluated. For each task combination and subject, we calculated the mean dual-task costs across both constituent tasks, and quantified ARD as the difference between those costs in elderly and in young subjects.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>An analysis of covariance yielded no significant effects of obstacle presence and overall task difficulty on ARD, but a highly significant effect of visual demand: non-walking tasks which required ongoing visual observation led to ARD of more than 8%, while those without such requirements led to near-zero ARD. We therefore concluded that the visual demand of the non-walking task is critical for the emergence of ARD while walking.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Combinations of walking and concurrent visual observation, which are common in everyday life, may contribute towards disturbed gait and falls during daily activities in old age. Prevention and rehabilitation programs for seniors should therefore include training of such combinations.</p

Age-related decline of peripheral visual processing: the role of eye movements

Earlier work suggests that the area of space from which useful visual information can be extracted (useful field of view, UFoV) shrinks in old age. We investigated whether this shrinkage, documented previously with a visual search task, extends to a bimanual tracking task. Young and elderly subjects executed two concurrent tracking tasks with their right and left arms. The separation between tracking displays varied from 3 to 35 cm. Subjects were asked to fixate straight ahead (condition FIX) or were free to move their eyes (condition FREE). Eye position was registered. In FREE, young subjects tracked equally well at all display separations. Elderly subjects produced higher tracking errors, and the difference between age groups increased with display separation. Eye movements were comparable across age groups. In FIX, elderly and young subjects tracked less well at large display separations. Seniors again produced higher tracking errors in FIX, but the difference between age groups did not increase reliably with display separation. However, older subjects produced a substantial number of illicit saccades, and when the effect of those saccades was factored out, the difference between young and older subjects’ tracking did increase significantly with display separation in FIX. We conclude that the age-related shrinkage of UFoV, previously documented with a visual search task, is observable with a manual tracking task as well. Older subjects seem to partly compensate their deficit by illicit saccades. Since the deficit is similar in both conditions, it may be located downstream from the convergence of retinal and oculomotor signals

Computer-Based Executive Function Training for Combat Veterans With PTSD: A Pilot Clinical Trial Assessing Feasibility and Predictors of Dropout

Background: While evidence-based PTSD treatments are often efficacious, 20–50% of individuals continue to experience significant symptoms following treatment. Further, these treatments do not directly target associated neuropsychological deficits. Here, we describe the methods and feasibility for computer-based executive function training (EFT), a potential alternative or adjunctive PTSD treatment.Methods: Male combat veterans with full or partial PTSD (n = 20) and combat-exposed controls (used for normative comparison; n = 20) completed clinical, neuropsychological and functional neuroimaging assessments. Those with PTSD were assigned to EFT (n = 13) or placebo training (word games; n = 7) at home for 6 weeks, followed by repeat assessment. Baseline predictors of treatment completion were explored using logistic regressions. Individual feedback and changes in clinical symptoms, neuropsychological function, and neural activation patterns are described.Results: Dropout rates for EFT and placebo training were 38.5 and 57.1%, respectively. Baseline clinical severity and brain activation (i.e., prefrontal-insula-amygdala networks) during an emotional anticipation task were predictive of treatment completion. Decreases in clinical symptoms were observed following treatment in both groups. EFT participants improved on training tasks but not on traditional neuropsychological assessments. All training completers indicated liking EFT, and indicated they would engage in EFT (alone or as adjunctive treatment) if offered.Conclusion: Results provide an initial framework to explore the feasibility of placebo-controlled, computerized, home-based executive function training (EFT) on psychological and neuropsychological function and brain activation in combat veterans with PTSD. Clinical severity and neural reactivity to emotional stimuli may indicate which veterans will complete home-based computerized interventions. While EFT may serve as a potential alternative or adjunctive PTSD treatment, further research is warranted to address compliance and determine whether EFT may benefit functioning above and beyond placebo interventions

Aging and consumer decision making

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/90138/1/j.1749-6632.2011.06390.x.pd