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Sketchpad Series

The effect of attentional locus on multisensory congruence in aging: neurophysiological evidence

Poster Session A - Saturday, March 29, 2025, 3:00 – 5:00 pm EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Edwin Roberto Ramírez Benítez^1,2 (10081996edwin@gmail.com), Rodolfo Solís-Vivanco^1,2; ¹National Institute of Neurology and Neurosurgery “Manuel Velasco Suárez”, Mexico, ²Faculty of Psychology, National Autonomous University of Mexico, UNAM

The congruence effect represents a remarkable index of audiovisual integration, which can be enhanced during healthy aging. However, the impact of attending to only one sensory modality (locus of attention) on this process in older adults remains unclear. This study aimed to compare the temporal and topographic changes in event-related potentials (ERPs) associated with the congruence effect evoked by synchronous targets and distractors during a crossmodal attention task in cognitively preserved young and older adults. The congruence effect (ERPce) was derived by subtracting the ERPs of incongruent conditions from the ones of congruent conditions for each sensory modality. Non-parametric permutation analyses were conducted for each modality in occipito-parietal and fronto-central channels including -0.2 to 1.1 seconds relative to the presentation of stimuli and distractors. Behaviorally, older adults exhibited a stronger congruence effect during auditory attention, whereas younger participants demonstrated a greater effect during visual attention. During visual attention, the ERPce revealed increased P50ec amplitudes over occipito-parietal regions in the older adults. In contrast, during auditory attention, older adults exhibited heightened P2ce and P7ec amplitudes with a fronto-central distribution, which were associated with stronger behavioral congruence effects. These findings suggest that focusing on a specific sensory modality modulates audiovisual integration differentially across age groups, with aging promoting reduced visual inhibition and delayed audiovisual integration in high-level association regions during auditory attention. Our results provide a foundation for further exploring the role of aging on multisensory integration and attentional performance

Topic Area: ATTENTION: Multisensory