Bolam, J., Diaz, J.A., Andrews, M. et al. (4 more authors) (2024) A drift diffusion model analysis of age-related impact on multisensory decision-making processes. Scientific Reports, 14. 14895. ISSN 2045-2322
Abstract
Older adults (OAs) are typically slower and/or less accurate in forming perceptual choices relative to younger adults. Despite perceptual deficits, OAs gain from integrating information across senses, yielding multisensory benefits. However, the cognitive processes underlying these seemingly discrepant ageing effects remain unclear. To address this knowledge gap, 212 participants (18-90 years old) performed an online object categorisation paradigm, whereby age-related differences in Reaction Times (RTs) and choice accuracy between audiovisual (AV), visual (V), and auditory (A) conditions could be assessed. Whereas OAs were slower and less accurate across sensory conditions, they exhibited greater RT decreases between AV and V conditions, showing a larger multisensory benefit towards decisional speed. Hierarchical Drift Diffusion Modelling (HDDM) was fitted to participants' behaviour to probe age-related impacts on the latent multisensory decision formation processes. For OAs, HDDM demonstrated slower evidence accumulation rates across sensory conditions coupled with increased response caution for AV trials of higher difficulty. Notably, for trials of lower difficulty we found multisensory benefits in evidence accumulation that increased with age, but not for trials of higher difficulty, in which increased response caution was instead evident. Together, our findings reconcile age-related impacts on multisensory decision-making, indicating greater multisensory evidence accumulation benefits with age underlying enhanced decisional speed.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2024. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | Ageing, Perceptual decision-making, Multisensory decision-making, Audiovisual object categorisation paradigm, Hierarchical drif difusion model(ling) (HDDM) |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Medicine and Health (Leeds) > School of Psychology (Leeds) The University of Leeds > Faculty of Biological Sciences (Leeds) > School of Biomedical Sciences (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number EU - European Union 845884 The Physiological Society None given |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 09 Jul 2024 15:29 |
Last Modified: | 09 Jul 2024 15:29 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer Nature |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/s41598-024-65549-5 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:214553 |