Faculty
Psychology
Supervisor Name
Dr. Ryan Stevenson, Laura Schneeberger (MSc. Candidate)
Keywords
aging, multisensory integration, perception, audiovisual, sensory processing, geriatric, cross-modal
Description
The proposed study will examine changes in audiovisual integration between younger and older adults. Audiovisual integration enables us to associate and bind related auditory and visual information and experience it as a single percept (Spence, 2007). Being able to properly integrate is crucial in our everyday lives. When perceiving speech, audiovisual integration binds visual information from lip movements with auditory information from the speaker's utterances so that speech can be perceived multimodally. With age, our auditory and visual sensory acuity tends to decline with audiovisual integration being impacted as a result (Brooks et al., 2018; Mahoney et al., 2011). We aim to examine the audiovisual integration abilities of younger adults and older adults using a multisensory battery. The multisensory battery consists of the following audiovisual tasks: an audiovisual detection task, a speech in noise task and a discrimination task. Group performance (e.g., reaction times and accuracy) on these tasks will be analyzed and compared to determine how audiovisual integration may differ throughout the lifespan. Changes in audiovisual integration with age can make it difficult to understand speech in noisy environments and can increase the risks of falls, and automobile collisions (DeLoss, Pierce & Andersen, 2013; Jones & Noppeney, 2021). By investigating age-related changes in audiovisual integration, we aim to better understand which abilities are most impaired so specific interventions can be developed to reduce dangerous and debilitating events. We will begin piloting this study in August 2022 on healthy younger adult members of the Sensory Perception Lab at Western University.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Dr. Ryan Stevenson, Laura Schneeberger and the Western USRI program for this opportunity and their continued support throughout the internship period.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Document Type
Paper
Included in
Cognition and Perception Commons, Developmental Psychology Commons, Development Studies Commons, Geropsychology Commons
Changes in Audiovisual Integration in Aging
The proposed study will examine changes in audiovisual integration between younger and older adults. Audiovisual integration enables us to associate and bind related auditory and visual information and experience it as a single percept (Spence, 2007). Being able to properly integrate is crucial in our everyday lives. When perceiving speech, audiovisual integration binds visual information from lip movements with auditory information from the speaker's utterances so that speech can be perceived multimodally. With age, our auditory and visual sensory acuity tends to decline with audiovisual integration being impacted as a result (Brooks et al., 2018; Mahoney et al., 2011). We aim to examine the audiovisual integration abilities of younger adults and older adults using a multisensory battery. The multisensory battery consists of the following audiovisual tasks: an audiovisual detection task, a speech in noise task and a discrimination task. Group performance (e.g., reaction times and accuracy) on these tasks will be analyzed and compared to determine how audiovisual integration may differ throughout the lifespan. Changes in audiovisual integration with age can make it difficult to understand speech in noisy environments and can increase the risks of falls, and automobile collisions (DeLoss, Pierce & Andersen, 2013; Jones & Noppeney, 2021). By investigating age-related changes in audiovisual integration, we aim to better understand which abilities are most impaired so specific interventions can be developed to reduce dangerous and debilitating events. We will begin piloting this study in August 2022 on healthy younger adult members of the Sensory Perception Lab at Western University.