Age does not count: resilience of quantity processing in healthy ageing

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Human Aging Research
• Quantitative Psychology

Background:

• Quantity processing, including numerosity, is crucial for daily life.
• While numerosity discrimination is resilient to healthy aging, continuous quantity processing (time, space) in older adults remains understudied.
• The interaction between different quantity dimensions and its preservation across the lifespan is not well understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of healthy aging on the processing of continuous quantities (time and space).
• To examine whether the relationship between different quantity dimensions is maintained in older adults.
• To compare the performance of younger and older adults on time, space, and numerosity discrimination tasks.

Main Methods:

• Two experimental paradigms were employed with younger (n=38) and older (n=32) healthy adults.
• Time and space discrimination were assessed independently using a two-choice task.
• Interactions between number, cumulative area, and duration were evaluated using dynamic dot patterns.

Main Results:

• Both younger and older adults demonstrated equal accuracy in time and space discrimination.
• Similar interaction patterns between number, area, and duration were observed in both age groups.
• Older adults exhibited altered sensitivity to task-irrelevant information in cumulative area and duration tasks.

Conclusions:

• Continuous quantity processing, like numerosity, appears resilient to healthy aging.
• Aging may differentially affect specific continuous quantity dimensions.
• The findings suggest that while overall continuous quantity processing is maintained, subtle age-related changes in sensitivity exist.