The Influence of Aging on Audiovisual Temporal Order Judgments

Background/Study Context: The perception of naturalistic events depends on the ability to integrate perceptual information from multiple sensory systems. Currently, little is known about how multisensory integration is affected by normal aging. Methods: The authors conducted two experiments to inves...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Experimental aging research 2013-03, Vol.39 (2), p.179-193
Main Authors: Fiacconi, Chris M., Harvey, Emilie C., Sekuler, Allison B., Bennett, Patrick J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Adult. Elderly
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Aging
Aging - psychology
Auditory Perception
Biological and medical sciences
Developmental psychology
Ears & hearing
Experiments
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Older people
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Sensory perception
Time Perception
Visual Perception
Young Adult
Young adults
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Summary:Background/Study Context: The perception of naturalistic events depends on the ability to integrate perceptual information from multiple sensory systems. Currently, little is known about how multisensory integration is affected by normal aging. Methods: The authors conducted two experiments to investigate audiovisual temporal processing in younger (18-29 years) and older (70+ years) adults. In both experiments, participants were presented with a brief visual stimulus and a brief auditory stimulus separated by various temporal offsets, and participants judged which stimulus was presented first. In Experiment 1, the auditory and visual stimuli were presented from the same perceived location, whereas in Experiment 2 they were presented from different locations. Results: The authors found no effect of stimulus location, and no evidence of age-related declines in performance in either experiment. Conclusion: Older adults appear to retain the ability to discriminate the temporal order of audiovisual stimuli and can perform similarly to younger adults.
ISSN:0361-073X
1096-4657
DOI:10.1080/0361073X.2013.761896