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Sensory- and memory-related drivers for altered ventriloquism effects and aftereffects in older adults
The manner in which humans exploit multisensory information for subsequent decisions changes with age. Multiple causes for such age-effects are being discussed, including a reduced precision in peripheral sensory representations, changes in cognitive inference about causal relations between sensory...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Masson
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7856550/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33422888 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2020.12.001 |
Sumario: | The manner in which humans exploit multisensory information for subsequent decisions changes with age. Multiple causes for such age-effects are being discussed, including a reduced precision in peripheral sensory representations, changes in cognitive inference about causal relations between sensory cues, and a decline in memory contributing to altered sequential patterns of multisensory behaviour. To dissociate these putative contributions, we investigated how healthy young and older adults integrate audio-visual spatial information within trials (the ventriloquism effect) and between trials (the ventriloquism aftereffect). With both a model-free and (Bayesian) model-based analyses we found that both biases differed between groups. Our results attribute the age-change in the ventriloquism bias to a decline in spatial hearing rather than a change in cognitive processes. This decline in peripheral function, combined with a more prominent influence from preceding responses rather than preceding stimuli in the elderly, can also explain the observed age-effect in the ventriloquism aftereffect. Our results suggest a transition from a sensory-to a behavior-driven influence of past multisensory experience on perceptual decisions with age, due to reduced sensory precision and change in memory capacity. |
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