Memory for health information: Influences of age, hearing aids, and multisensory presentation.

We investigated how presenting online health information in different modalities can influence memory, as this may be particularly important for older adults who may need to make regular decisions about health and could also face additional challenges such as memory deficits and sensory impairment (hearing loss). We tested whether, as predicted by some literature, older adults would disproportionately benefit from audio-visual (AV) information compared with visual-only (VO) or auditory-only (AO) information, relative to young adults. Participants were 78 young adults (aged 18-30 years old,  = 25.

Older adults do not show enhanced benefits from multisensory information on speeded perceptual discrimination tasks.

Some research has shown that older adults benefit more from multisensory information than do young adults. However, more recent evidence has shown that the multisensory age benefit varies considerably across tasks. In the current study, older (65 - 80) and young (18 - 30) adults (N = 191) completed a speeded perceptual discrimination task either online or face-to-face to assess task response speed.

Age Deficits in Associative Memory Are Not Alleviated by Multisensory Paradigms.

Objectives: Age deficits in memory are widespread, this affects individuals at a personal level, and investigating memory has been a key focus in cognitive aging research. Age deficits occur in memory for an episode, where information from the environment is integrated through the senses into an episodic event via associative memory. Associating items in memory has been shown to be particularly difficult for older adults but can often be alleviated by providing support from the external environment.

Relationship between self-reported listening and communication difficulties and executive function: a protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Introduction: Listening and communication difficulties can limit people's participation in activity and adversely affect their quality of life. Hearing, as well as listening and communication difficulties, can be measured either by using behavioural tests or self-report measures, and the outcomes are not always closely linked. The association between behaviourally measured and self-reported hearing is strong, whereas the association between behavioural and self-reported measures of listening and communication difficulties is much weaker, suggesting they assess different aspects of listening.

The effect of unisensory and multisensory information on lexical decision and free recall in young and older adults.

Studies using simple low-level stimuli show that multisensory stimuli lead to greater improvements in processing speed for older adults than young adults. However, there is insufficient evidence to explain how these benefits influence performance for more complex processes such as judgement and memory tasks. This study examined how presenting stimuli in multiple sensory modalities (audio-visual) instead of one (audio-only or visual-only) may help older adults to improve their memory and cognitive processing compared to young adults.

Does audio-visual information result in improved health-related decision-making compared with audio-only or visual-only information? Protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Introduction: Making health-related decisions can be difficult due to the amount and complexity of information available. Audio-visual information may improve memory for health information but whether audio-visual information can enhance health-related decisions has not been explored using quantitative methods. The objective of this systematic review is to understand how effective audio-visual information is for informing health-related decision-making compared with audio-only or visual-only information.

Age differences in resting state EEG and their relation to eye movements and cognitive performance.

Prior research has focused on EEG differences across age or EEG differences across cognitive tasks/eye tracking. There are few studies linking age differences in EEG to age differences in behavioural performance which is necessary to establish how neuroactivity corresponds to successful and impaired ageing. Eighty-six healthy participants completed a battery of cognitive tests and eye-tracking measures.

Audio-visual integration in noise: Influence of auditory and visual stimulus degradation on eye movements and perception of the McGurk effect.

Seeing a talker's face can aid audiovisual (AV) integration when speech is presented in noise. However, few studies have simultaneously manipulated auditory and visual degradation. We aimed to establish how degrading the auditory and visual signal affected AV integration.

The threshold for the McGurk effect in audio-visual noise decreases with development.

Across development, vision increasingly influences audio-visual perception. This is evidenced in illusions such as the McGurk effect, in which a seen mouth movement changes the perceived sound. The current paper assessed the effects of manipulating the clarity of the heard and seen signal upon the McGurk effect in children aged 3-6 (n = 29), 7-9 (n = 32) and 10-12 (n = 29) years, and adults aged 20-35 years (n = 32).