https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0503-7983
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ABSTRACT
Research Question
Are semantic impairments in Alzheimer's disease (AD) partially due to deficits in spatial attention?
Methods and Results
In a target detection task, both older adults (OAs) and AD individuals were facilitated by valid spatial cues, but only OAs were impaired by invalid cues compared to neutral. In a reading task, spatial cues validly or invalidly cued the location of pictures, which were related or unrelated to subsequent, centrally presented, words. OAs showed semantic priming only after valid cues, whereas AD individuals showed priming after valid and invalid cues.
Discussion
Failure to inhibit uncued locations results in processing of potentially distracting semantic information in AD.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Additional information
Funding
The work was supported by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs [Medical Research Service VA Merit Review Award]; U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs [Medical Research Service VA Merit Review Award]; VA Rehabilitation Research and Development Traumatic Brain Injury National Network Research Center [Translational Research Center for TBI and Stress Disorders, TRACTS].