Lifelong changes in the cerebral processing of social signals
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Glasgow
Department Name: College of Medical, Veterinary, Life Sci
Abstract
Wellbeing is grounded in rewarding social interactions that in turn depend on the reliable perception of a person?s identity and affective state. Ongoing research part of the ?Social Interactions? project provides exciting new insight on how the brain decodes social signals from other persons. However most of this research is conducted in young university students, and does not translate well to the large age-range of the general population.
In this proposal we aim to study how ageing affects our perception of social signals from another person?s face, voice and body. We will recruit a large group of healthy adult participants (half male and half female) with ages spanning a wide range (20 to 80 years old). These participants will be presented with a face, a voice or a schematic picture of a body and will be asked to decide: i) whether the person is male or female; ii) whether the person is happy or angry. Sound and images will be manipulated in order to control task difficulty, and ensure that all participants find the task equally difficult. We will measure the brain activity of these participants using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) while they perform the tasks.
Results will provide for the first time a comprehensive picture of how age affects the way we perceive other persons? face, voice and body during social interactions. We will be able to determine at what age (if any) our perception of social signals become less accurate. In addition, we will be able to determine if these age-related differences depends on whether social signals originate from the face, the voice or the body and if the differences depend on the task at hand. This research is important for the scientific community working on aging and social cognition. It has also the potential to change clinical practice by permitting a better, earlier diagnostic of possible impairments in social interactions with increasing age.
In this proposal we aim to study how ageing affects our perception of social signals from another person?s face, voice and body. We will recruit a large group of healthy adult participants (half male and half female) with ages spanning a wide range (20 to 80 years old). These participants will be presented with a face, a voice or a schematic picture of a body and will be asked to decide: i) whether the person is male or female; ii) whether the person is happy or angry. Sound and images will be manipulated in order to control task difficulty, and ensure that all participants find the task equally difficult. We will measure the brain activity of these participants using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) while they perform the tasks.
Results will provide for the first time a comprehensive picture of how age affects the way we perceive other persons? face, voice and body during social interactions. We will be able to determine at what age (if any) our perception of social signals become less accurate. In addition, we will be able to determine if these age-related differences depends on whether social signals originate from the face, the voice or the body and if the differences depend on the task at hand. This research is important for the scientific community working on aging and social cognition. It has also the potential to change clinical practice by permitting a better, earlier diagnostic of possible impairments in social interactions with increasing age.
Technical Summary
Wellbeing is grounded in rewarding social interactions that in turn depend on accurate signal perception from others (e.g. identity, affect). Whereas the mechanisms of these key components of social cognition are being characterized in the young adult, their potential changes and associated effects on social interactions during aging remain unknown.
We propose to characterize lifelong changes in the perception of other persons in a cross-sectional sample spanning a wide age-range. Our primary aim is to identify perceptual domains and age ranges particularly affected by aging to be further investigated in a larger study.
Specifically, we propose:
(i) to investigate lifelong changes in the perception of socially-relevant information (gender and affective expression) from the voice, face and body;
(ii) to quantify the cerebral correlates of lifelong changes observed at the behavioural level by measuring cerebral activity across sensory domains at controlled levels of task performance;
(iii) to test whether these cerebral correlates are compatible with the compensation and the de-differentiation theories of aging.
60 healthy adults with age ranging between 20 and 80 years-old, equally distributed across the whole age-range (10 per decade) and balanced for gender will be recruited. Participants will perform behavioural tests evaluating their performance at tasks tapping into three complementary aspects of social perception:
(i) face perception;
(ii) voice perception;
(iii) body motion perception (using point-light displays of body motion). Cerebral activity will be measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while they perform the above tasks at controlled performance levels.
Our design and methodology follow recommendations of recent meta-analyses on cognitive aging which highlight the need for studies that:
(i) investigate a wide age-range rather than concentrating on a small number of age groups;
(ii) investigate several cognitive domains for meaningful comparisons;
(iii) control for task difficulty across tasks and participants.
Results will characterize general patterns of change across different modalities, specific sensory domains in which changes are more important, as well as an age range at which changes are more marked. The endpoints will be brought into a wider, more detailed study with the aim of permitting a better, earlier diagnostic of potential age-related impairments in social interactions.
We propose to characterize lifelong changes in the perception of other persons in a cross-sectional sample spanning a wide age-range. Our primary aim is to identify perceptual domains and age ranges particularly affected by aging to be further investigated in a larger study.
Specifically, we propose:
(i) to investigate lifelong changes in the perception of socially-relevant information (gender and affective expression) from the voice, face and body;
(ii) to quantify the cerebral correlates of lifelong changes observed at the behavioural level by measuring cerebral activity across sensory domains at controlled levels of task performance;
(iii) to test whether these cerebral correlates are compatible with the compensation and the de-differentiation theories of aging.
60 healthy adults with age ranging between 20 and 80 years-old, equally distributed across the whole age-range (10 per decade) and balanced for gender will be recruited. Participants will perform behavioural tests evaluating their performance at tasks tapping into three complementary aspects of social perception:
(i) face perception;
(ii) voice perception;
(iii) body motion perception (using point-light displays of body motion). Cerebral activity will be measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while they perform the above tasks at controlled performance levels.
Our design and methodology follow recommendations of recent meta-analyses on cognitive aging which highlight the need for studies that:
(i) investigate a wide age-range rather than concentrating on a small number of age groups;
(ii) investigate several cognitive domains for meaningful comparisons;
(iii) control for task difficulty across tasks and participants.
Results will characterize general patterns of change across different modalities, specific sensory domains in which changes are more important, as well as an age range at which changes are more marked. The endpoints will be brought into a wider, more detailed study with the aim of permitting a better, earlier diagnostic of potential age-related impairments in social interactions.
