Age-related decline in global form suppression.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive neuroscience
• Visual perception
• Aging research

Background:

• Global precedence effect: visual processing favors global forms over local elements.
• Age-related decline in selective attention affects the ability to filter information.
• Limited understanding of how aging impacts global-local visual selection.

Purpose of the Study:

• Investigate age-related differences in global-local visual selection.
• Examine the effect of aging on the global precedence effect using Kanizsa figures.
• Analyze event-related lateralizations (ERLs) to understand attentional mechanisms.

Main Methods:

• Participants performed a global-local task with Kanizsa (global) and non-Kanizsa (local) configurations.
• Event-related lateralizations (ERLs), including positivity posterior contralateral (PPC) and posterior contralateral negativity (PCN), were analyzed.
• Behavioral performance and electrophysiological responses were compared between younger and older adults.

Main Results:

• Older adults demonstrated a more pronounced global precedence effect behaviorally.
• An early positivity posterior contralateral (PPC) was observed in older adults when local targets were presented with global distractors.
• Attentional resources were allocated faster to global targets, but spatial attention allocation was delayed in older adults.

Conclusions:

• Older adults show an enhanced global-local asymmetry due to less effective suppression of global distractors.
• Difficulties in disengaging from a global default selection mode and switching to local attention resolution characterize aging.
• Age-related attentional deficits impact the dynamic allocation of attentional resources in visual processing.