Biomedical subjects

Matthew S Peterson

Publications and source records attributed to Matthew S Peterson.

16 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Testing the limits of cognitive plasticity in older adults: application to attentional control.

Laboratory based training studies suggest that older adults can benefit from training in tasks that tap control aspects of attention. This was further explored in the present study in which older and younger adults completed an adaptive and individualized dual-task training program. The testing-the-limits approach was used [Lindenberger, U., & Baltes, P. B. (1995). Testing-the-limits and experimental simulation: Two methods to explicate the role of learning in development. Human Development, 38, 349-360.] in order to gain insight into how attentional control can be improved in older adults. Results indicated substantial improvement in overlapping task performance in both younger and older participants suggesting the availability of cognitive plasticity in both age groups. Improvement was equivalent among age groups in response speed and performance variability but larger in response accuracy for older adults. The results suggest that time-sharing skills can be substantially improved in older adults.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

Training-induced plasticity in older adults: effects of training on hemispheric asymmetry.

The extent to which cortical plasticity is retained in old age remains an understudied question, despite large social and scientific implications of such a result. Neuroimaging research reports individual differences in age-related activation, thereby educing speculation that some degree of plasticity may remain throughout life. We conducted a randomized longitudinal dual-task training study to investigate if performance improvements (a) change the magnitude or pattern of fMRI activation, thereby suggesting some plasticity retention in old age and (b) result in a reduction in asymmetry and an increase in age differences in fMRI activation as a compensatory model of performance-related activation predicts. Performance improvements were correlated with an increase in hemispheric asymmetry and a reduction in age differences in ventral and dorsal prefrontal activation. These results provide evidence for plasticity in old age and are discussed in relation to an alternative argument for the role of reduced asymmetry in performance improvements.

Adaptation, Physiological↗

PubMed2006

Training-induced functional activation changes in dual-task processing: an FMRI study.

Although training-induced changes in brain activity have been previously examined, plasticity associated with executive functions remains understudied. In this study, we examined training-related changes in cortical activity during a dual task requiring executive control. Two functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) sessions, one before training and one after training, were performed on both a control group and a training group. Using a region-of-interest analysis, we examined Time x Group and Time x Group x Condition interactions to isolate training-dependent changes in activation. We found that most regions involved in dual-task processing before training showed reductions in activation after training. Many of the decreases in activation were correlated with improved performance on the task. We also found an area in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex that showed an increase in activation for the training group for the dual-task condition, which was also correlated with improved performance. These results are discussed in relation to the efficacy of training protocols for modulating attention and executive functions, dual-task processing, and fMRI correlates of plasticity.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

Aging, memory and visual search.

Potential age-related differences in the memory processes that underlie visual search are examined in the present study. Using a dynamic, gaze-contingent search paradigm developed to assess memory for previously examined distractors, older adults demonstrated no memory deficit. Surprisingly, older adults made fewer refixations compared to their younger counterparts, indicating better memory for previously inspected objects. This improved memory was not the result of a speed-accuracy trade-off or larger Inhibition-of-Return effects for older than for younger adults. Additional analyses suggested that older adults may derive their benefit from finer spatial encoding of search items. These findings suggest that some of the memory processes that support visual search are relatively age invariant.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

Memory for where, but not what, is used during visual search.

Although the role of memory in visual search is debatable, most researchers agree with a limited-capacity model of memory in visual search. The authors demonstrate the role of memory by replicating previous findings showing that visual search is biased away from old items (previously examined items) and toward new items (nonexamined items). Furthermore, the authors examined the type of memory representations used to bias search by changing an item's individuating feature or location during search. Changing the individuating feature of an item did not disrupt normal search biases. However, when the location of an item changed, normal search biases were disrupted. These results suggest that memory used in visual search is based on items' locations rather than their identity.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2005

Neural correlates of dual-task performance after minimizing task-preparation.

Previous dual-task neuroimaging studies have not discriminated between brain regions involved in preparing to make more than one response from those involved in the management and execution of two tasks. To isolate the effects of dual-task processing while minimizing effects related to task-preparatory processes, we employed a blocked event-related design in which single trials and dual trials were randomly and unpredictably intermixed for one block (mixed block) and presented in isolation of one another during other blocks (pure blocks). Any differences between dual-task and single-task trials within the mixed block would be related to dual-task performance while minimizing any effects related to preparatory differences between the conditions. For this comparison, we found dual-task-related activation throughout inferior prefrontal, temporal, extrastriate, and parietal cortices and the basal ganglia. In addition, when comparing the single task within the mixed block with the single task presented in the pure block of trials, the regions involved in processes important in the mixed block yet unrelated to dual-task operations could be specified. In this comparison, we report a pattern of activation in right inferior prefrontal and superior parietal cortices. Our results argue that a variety of neural regions remain active during dual-task performance even after minimizing task-preparatory processes, but some regions implicated in dual-task performance in previous studies may have been due to task-preparation processes. Furthermore, our results suggest that dual-task operations activate the same brain areas as the single tasks, but to a greater magnitude than the single tasks. These results are discussed in relation to current conceptions of the neural correlates of dual-task performance.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Visual search in temporally segregated displays: converging operations in the study of the preview benefit.

Preview benefit is an attentional phenomenon that enables observers to selectively search through new information in the visual field. In a preview search task, objects are presented in two sets, separated by a time interval (preview interval), and with the second set (new objects) containing the target. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were used to investigate whether preview benefit occurs via maintenance of inhibition of the old objects during the preview interval. ERPs time-locked to a color probe indicated that the old objects were actively attended rather than inhibited during the preview interval. Follow-up behavioral experiments produced converging results. The results suggest that, although participants might be using inhibition at later stages of the preview interval, they are not maintaining inhibition on the old objects throughout most of the preview interval.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2005

Training effects on dual-task performance: are there age-related differences in plasticity of attentional control?

A number of studies have suggested that attentional control skills required to perform 2 tasks concurrently become impaired with age (A. A. Hartley, 1992; J. M. McDowd & R. J. Shaw, 2000). A. A. Hartley (2001) recently observed that the age-related differences in dual-task performance were larger when the 2 tasks required similar motor responses. The present study examined the extent to which age-related deficits in dual-task performance or time sharing--in particular, dual-task performance of 2 discrimination tasks with similar motor requirements--can be moderated by training. The results indicate that, even when the 2 tasks required similar motor responses, both older and younger adults could learn to perform the tasks faster and more accurately. Moreover, the improvement in performance generalized to new task combinations involving new stimuli. Therefore, it appears that training can substantially improve dual-task processing skills in older adults.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Oculomotor consequences of abrupt object onsets and offsets: onsets dominate oculomotor capture.

Previous research has shown that the appearance of an object (onset) and the disappearance of an object (offset) have the ability to influence the allocation of covert attention. To determine whether both onsets and offsets have the ability to influence eye movements, a series of experiments was conducted in which participants had to make goal-directed eye movements to a color singleton target in the presence of an irrelevant onset/offset. In accord with previous research, onsets had the ability to capture the eyes. The offset of an object demonstrated little or no ability to interrupt goal-directed eye movements to the target. Two experiments in which the effects of onsets and offsets on covert attention were examined suggest that offsets do not capture the eyes, because they have a lesser ability to capture covert attention than do onsets. A number of other studies that have shown strong effects of offsets on attention have used offsets that were uncorrelated with target position (i.e., nonpredictive), whereas we used onsets and offsets that never served as targets (i.e., antipredictive). The present results are consistent with a new-object theory of attentional capture in which onsets receive attentional priority over other types of changes in the visual environment.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2004

Age equivalence in switch costs for prosaccade and antisaccade tasks.

This study examined age differences in task switching using prosaccade and antisaccade tasks. Significant specific and general switch costs were found for both young and old adults, suggesting the existence of 2 types of processes: those responsible for activation of the currently relevant task set and deactivation of the previously relevant task set and those responsible for maintaining more than 1 task active in working memory. Contrary to the findings of previous research, which used manual response tasks with arbitrary stimulus-response mappings to study task-switching performance, no age-related deficits in either type of switch costs were found. These data suggest age-related sparing of task-switching processes in situations in which memory load is low and stimulus-response mappings are well learned.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

Aging and the strategic control of the fixation offset effect.

A study was conducted to examine potential age-related differences in the strategic control of exogenous and endogenous saccades within the context of the fixation offset effect (FOE; i.e., faster saccades when a fixation point is removed than when it is left on throughout a trial). Subjects were instructed to make rapid saccades either on the basis of a suddenly appearing peripheral visual stimulus (exogenous saccade) or in response to a tone (endogenous saccade). On half of the trials the fixation point was removed simultaneously with the occurrence of the cue stimulus. Subjects' preparatory set was varied by manipulating the proportion of saccades generated to a visual and auditory stimulus within a trial block. Young and old adults both produced FOEs, and the FOEs were strategically modulated by preparatory set. The data are discussed in terms of aging and oculomotor control.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

Landmarks help guide attention during visual search.

Using a novel visual search paradigm McCarley et al. (2003) concluded that the oculomotor system keeps a history of 3-4 previously attended objects. However, their displays were visually sparse, denying participants structural information which might be used during normal search. This might have underestimated memory capacity. To examine this possibility, we included landmarks in the same search paradigm. Previously examined items were re-examined less frequently when landmarks were present compared to when they were absent. Results indicate that objects in the environment that share no features with search items are used as external support to aid memory in guiding visual search.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

Covert shifts of attention precede involuntary eye movements.

There is considerable evidence that covert visual attention precedes voluntary eye movements to an intended location. What happens to covert attention when an involuntary saccadic eye movement is made? In agreement with other researchers, we found that attention and voluntary eye movements are tightly coupled in such a way that attention always shifts to the intended location before the eyes begin to move. However, we found that when an involuntary eye movement is made, attention first precedes the eyes to the unintended location and then switches to the intended location, with the eyes following this pattern a short time later. These results support the notion that attention and saccade programming are tightly coupled.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

How much memory does oculomotor search have?

Research has demonstrated that oculomotor visual search is guided by memory for which items or locations within a display have already been inspected. In the study reported here, we used a gaze-contingent search paradigm to examine properties of this memory. Data revealed a memory buffer for search history of three to four items. This buffer was effected in part by a space-based trace attached to a location independently of whether the object that had been seen at that position remained visible, and was subject to interference from other stimuli seen in the course of a trial.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Contingent visual marking by transients.

Preview search is a phenomenon in which a set of new items can be searched with seemingly no interference from items already present in the display. The preview effect has been shown to occur only when the presentation of the new items is accompanied by a luminance change (Donk & Theeuwes, 2001). In a series of experiments, we extend the type of transients that can lead to a preview benefit to offsets and motion, and confirm Donk and Theeuwes's finding that equiluminant color changes do not lead to a preview effect. Like Donk and Theeuwes, we find that preview search does not occur when only the old items undergo a transient change, suggesting that the processes responsible for preview search are triggered when the new items undergo a change detectable by the magnocellular system. In addition, we find that irrelevant transients interfere with preview search only when they match the current attentional set (e.g., luminance change or motion). Results suggest that preview search is not the automatic capture of attention by transients, but rather is contingent on top-down control settings.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

Overt and covert object-based attention.

To examine the role of perceptual object representations in the control of eye movements and attention, a pair of experiments adapted the object-cuing paradigm of Egly, Driver, and Rafal (1994) to require eye movements. Displays were pairs of adjacent rectangles, each containing two characters. Observers were asked to make a speeded judgment of a target character's orientation, and a cue was provided prior to target/distractor onset to indicate the target's likely location. Gaze-contingent presentation of target and distractors was used to demand overt scanning of displays. Eye movements during task performance evinced two forms of object-based effects. First, saccades following fixation on an invalidly cued item were more likely to be made within the cued rectangle than between rectangles. Second, saccades within the cued rectangle were preceded by shorter dwell times than saccades between rectangles. Extrafoveal processing of stimuli within the cued rectangle, however, was not facilitated, suggesting that covert attention was not allocated more densely within the cued than within the uncued object.

Adult↗