Interactions between phasic alerting and spatial orienting: effects of normal aging and Alzheimer's disease
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Updated: Aug 24, 2026

The 4 Mountains Test: A Short Test of Spatial Memory with High Sensitivity for the Diagnosis of Pre-dementia Alzheimer's Disease
Published on: October 13, 2016
Elena Festa-Martino1, Brian R Ott, William C Heindel
1Department of Psychology, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA.
Abstract:
The effects of aging and Alzheimer's disease (AD) on phasic alerting and exogenous spatial orienting were examined within a single precuing task. Phasic alerting decreased with normal aging and was completely eliminated with AD. AD patients also demonstrated an increased spatial orienting effect, attributable to an increased benefit from spatial orienting that was associated with a decreased benefit from nonselective alerting. These results suggest that performance within the precuing paradigm reflects the product of an interaction between nonselective alerting processes and spatially selective orienting processes. The results also highlight the importance of simultaneously assessing alerting and orienting within the same task, because changes attributable to alerting may otherwise be attributed incorrectly to changes in 1 or more processes associated with spatial orienting.
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