Local-global processing in Alzheimer's disease: an examination of interference, inhibition and priming

Impairments of memory, praxis, gnosis, language and executive functioning are well documented in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Functions, such as attention, however, have only recently been systematically investigated. We used Navon-type stimuli (large "global" digits composed of smaller "local" digits) to assess 12 AD participants' plus age-matched controls' ability to focus and alter the scale of their spatial attention. In the first experiment, participants responded to either the global or local characters within a block, ignoring characters at the other spatial scale. Healthy young adults (n=12) demonstrated the normal 'global precedence' effect on this task. In contrast, participants with AD and their age-matched controls were significantly faster on the local task than on the global task, suggesting in these groups a 'local precedence' effect. This consisted of both a local advantage and a local-on-global interference effect. In a second experiment, participants searched for designated targets which occurred unpredictably at either the local or global spatial scale. Participants with AD were significantly slower and more error-prone than older controls. In addition, participants with AD showed a greater cost in reaction time (RT) when required to switch spatial scales on consecutive trials, compared to no switch responses at the same spatial scale on consecutive trials. Thus, AD may impair the ability to process global figures, due perhaps to involvement of posterior parietal areas. Further, participants with AD were poor at inhibiting irrelevant stimuli and at inhibiting attentional allocation to an irrelevant spatial scale, which may relate to prefrontal pathology.