Crossmodal selection in attention and action: Age-related changes in cognitive preparation of crossmodal processing and their neural underpinnings

注意和行动的跨模态选择：跨模态处理认​​知准备的年龄相关变化及其神经基础

• 批准号: 448857561
• 负责人: Dr. Denise N. Stephan
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Lehrstuhl für Psychologie I: Kognitions- und Experimentalpsychologie
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 资助国家: 德国
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/448857561?language=en
• 关键词: Crossmodal; selection; attention; action; Age

The influence of crossmodal stimulation, crossmodal responses and their mappings in general as well as the fact that complex situations in a crossmodal context are especially demanding with higher age has rather been neglected in the context of research on cognitive control. Thus, it is important to examine the mechanisms underlying age-related difficulties in crossmodal processing at both the cognitive-behavioral and neuro-cognitive level. In this project, we focus on one potential factor that may influence crossmodal processing, namely cognitive preparation. It has been shown that performance in multitasking can improve under certain conditions such as prolonged preparation time or precuing of a demanded response. However, it seems that preparation benefits are in parts age-related. Furthermore, previous research on cognitive preparation mostly disregarded modality-specific influences, which might additionally contribute to age-related differences. Finally, little is known regarding the underlying possible neural processes of crossmodal cognitive preparation. As regards age-related effects, exploring neural processes might help to better understand why the performance between younger and older adults differs and whether and how age-related changes in neural systems may adapt in order to perform the same crossmodal mental operations as in young adults. Taken together, the current state of the art strongly implies the need for further research. We will act on this by establishing a new cooperation between Germany and Taiwan to combine our competences in the study of crossmodal processing (Aachen) and the corresponding underlying neural processes (Tainan). Our joint research aims to integrate our previous research to achieve a deeper understanding of age-related effects in crossmodal processing and examine age-related changes in cognitive preparation of crossmodal processing on different, yet connected levels of cognitive processing by implementing three different crossmodal paradigms in three work packages a) Stimulus selection: A crossmodal attention switching paradigm is used to explore potential age-related differences in modality-specific congruency effects; b) (Stimulus-Response) Mapping selection: The crossmodal task-mapping switching paradigm is used to explore whether older adults have more problems in selecting and preparing modality mappings in mixed-task situations; c) Response selection: We will design a crossmodal response precuing paradigm to examine whether older adults show impairments in response preparation when using different effectors. Together, this research will help to better understand age-related changes in crossmodal information processing, which is highly important because of the ubiquity of crossmodal processing in natural task contexts outside the experimental lab and because understanding age-related cognitive changes represents a major challenge in our aging society.

在认知控制的研究背景下，跨模态刺激、跨模态反应及其映射的影响以及跨模态背景下的复杂情况对年龄要求特别高的事实被忽视了。因此，从认知行为和神经认知两个层面研究跨通道加工中年龄相关困难的机制是非常重要的。在这个项目中，我们专注于一个可能影响跨通道加工的潜在因素，即认知准备。研究表明，在某些条件下，如延长准备时间或预先要求响应，多任务处理的性能可以提高。然而，似乎准备的好处部分与年龄有关。此外，以前的研究认知准备大多忽视了特定的影响，这可能会导致年龄相关的差异。最后，关于跨模态认知准备的潜在可能神经过程知之甚少。至于与年龄相关的影响，探索神经过程可能有助于更好地理解为什么年轻人和老年人之间的表现不同，以及神经系统中与年龄相关的变化是否以及如何适应，以便执行与年轻人相同的跨模态心理操作。总的来说，目前的技术水平强烈表明需要进一步研究。我们将通过建立德国和台湾之间的新合作来采取行动，将我们在跨模态处理（亚琛）和相应的潜在神经过程（台南）研究中的能力结合起来。我们的联合研究旨在整合我们以前的研究，以更深入地了解跨通道加工中与年龄相关的影响，并通过在三个工作包中实施三种不同的跨通道范式，在不同的认知加工水平上检查跨通道加工的认知准备中与年龄相关的变化。一个跨通道注意转换范式被用来探索特定通道一致性效应中潜在的年龄相关差异; B）（刺激-反应）映射选择：采用跨通道任务映射转换范式，探讨老年人在混合任务情境中是否存在较多的通道映射选择和准备问题; c）响应选择：我们将设计一个跨模态反应预处理范式，以检查老年人是否在使用不同的效应器时表现出反应准备障碍。总之，这项研究将有助于更好地理解跨模态信息处理中与年龄相关的变化，这一点非常重要，因为跨模态处理在实验室之外的自然任务环境中无处不在，而且理解与年龄相关的认知变化是我们老龄化社会的一个重大挑战。