Covert orienting of visuospatial attention in the early stages of aging

Abstract

Electrophysiological and behavioral responses were recorded in healthy young (19–23 years) and older (56–66 years) subjects dur- ing the execution ofa visuospatial attention task. The objective was to test whether covert orienting of visuospatial attention (COVAT) is sensitive to the early stages of aging. All subjects responded faster to targets following valid than invalid cues.The amplitude of the P1component of visual event-related potentials (ERP) was larger to targets following central valid cues at all SOAs. Subtle age-related changes were observed in P1 amplitude under peripheral cueing. Furthermore, older subjects presented longer reaction times (RTs) and lower P1 amplitudes regardless ofthe attention condition.