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Previous research has shown an age by multimodal interaction in low-level detection tasks such that older adults benefit more from multisensory information than young adults (Laurienti et al., 2006; Hugenschmidt et al., 2009). In contrast, our lab (OSF Registries | The effect of unimodal and multimodal information on lexical decision and free recall in younger and older adults) found a multimodal benefit over unimodal information for both age groups for lexical decision accuracy and memory recall. The different findings may have been due to our study using a multimodal condition that did not use a sufficiently redundant multimodal condition. In our study, both the auditory and visual targets were the same language-based word stimuli, likely processed by language parts of the brain for both modalities. This is different to the work from Laurienti’s lab as they used the actual colour red or blue alongside the auditory word for their multimodal condition (Laurienti et al., 2006; Hugenschmidt et al., 2009). Our lab attempted to replicate Laurienti’s paradigm which is based on the response to the colour of a disk that is red or blue (visual colour), the words red or blue (auditory speech), or both of the above (multimodal: colour-speech) (|The effect of unimodal and multimodal information in a low-level detection task in younger and older adults). We included additional conditions in which the red and blue disks are replaced with the words ‘red’ and ‘blue’, either alone (visual word) or in combination with the spoken words (multimodal: word-speech). We hypothesised that young and older adults would benefit equally from the multimodal stimuli when both contain language information, but that older adults will benefit more than young adults when the multimodal stimuli contribute language information that is not present in the visual stimulus. The results showed no interaction effects between age group (young, old) and modality (auditory speech, visual colour, visual words, audiovisual colour-speech, audiovisual word-speech) for accuracy or response time. However, a multimodal benefit was found over comparable unimodal information for both age groups for response time. Therefore, we did not replicate the multisensory information boost for older adults compared to young adults (Laurienti et al., 2006). The lack of congruency between our findings and Laurienti et al.’s (2006) prompted our lab to contact the corresponding author. After helpful discussions with the author, our lab aimed to directly replicate Lauirenti et al. (2006) by including task-irrelevant green stimuli (OSF Registries | The effect of unimodal and multimodal information in a low-level detection task in younger and older adults (Experiment 3)). Task-irrelevant green stimuli were to be ignored by the participant when presented unimodally (visual colour or auditory speech). In contrast, during a multimodal (colour-speech) presentation, the green stimulus was only ever presented along with a blue or red stimulus (i.e., there were no congruent green multisensory trials) and in this instance, participants were instructed to respond to the red or blue stimulus and ignore the green. Therefore, Laurienti’s paradigm required participants to always respond to the colour of a disk that is red or blue (visual colour), the words red or blue (auditory speech), or whenever red or blue is presented in at least one of the modalities (visual, auditory) in the multimodal (visual colour - auditory speech) presentation. We hypothesised that older adults would disproportionally benefit from the integration of multisensory information in comparison to young adults. However, similar to our labs previous findings, the results did not mirror those of Laurienti et al. (2006), rather a multimodal benefit was found over the visual condition for both age groups for response time. The key difference between our lab’s replication of Laurienti et al. (2006) is that our study was conducted online, whereas Laurienti et al.’s study was laboratory based. Therefore, the discrepancy between the findings could be due to the two testing formats. The current study will replicate Laurienti et al.’s (2006) two-alternative forced-choice discrimination task by conducting in-lab testing. In line with the findings of Laurienti et al. (2006), we hypothesise that older adults will disproportionally benefit from the integration of multisensory information in comparison to young adults.

How do age differences in face memory change when emotional faces (happy/sad) are paired with congruent music (happy/sad), incongruent music (sad/happy), or silence. Current theory predicts older adults would benefit more from the audiovisual congruency than young adults and that the typical age deficit in memory would be smaller for the congruent presentation as opposed to the incongruent and unimodal (no music) presentation.

How do age differences in face memory change when emotional faces (happy/sad) are paired with congruent music (happy/sad), incongruent music (sad/happy), or silence. Current theory predicts older adults would benefit more from the audiovisual congruency than young adults and that the typical age deficit in memory would be smaller for the congruent presentation as opposed to the incongruent and unimodal (no music) presentation.

As population demographics shift towards a greater proportion of older adults in society (ONS,2018; United Nations DESA, 2017) it is more important than ever to identify strategies that improve quality of life in old age. Several studies using simple low-level stimuli have shown that older adults benefit more from multisensory stimuli than do young adults (Diederich et al., 2008; de Boer-Schellekens & Vroomen, 2014; Laurienti et al., 2006; Peiffer et al., 2007). In contrast, learning and memory paradigms have shown that both young and older adults benefit equally from multisensory stimuli. For instance, in problem solving (van Gerven et al., 2006) and word recall (Constantinidou & Baker, 2002). However, there is insufficient research to fully understand how the benefit of multisensory stimuli could influence performance on cued word recall. Previous research using visual only stimuli found older adults performed poorer than young adults in a cued word recall task using unrelated word pairings (Badham et al., 2012). The current study builds on this research to show how sensory support, by presenting stimuli in multiple sensory modalities (audiovisual) instead of one, may further help older adults improve their memory. We propose that multisensory stimuli can alleviate age-related deficits found in unrelated word pairing tasks by supporting cognitively demanding perceptual processing.

Previous research has shown an age by multimodal interaction in low-level detection tasks such that older adults benefit more from multisensory information than younger adults (Laurienti et al., 2006; Hugenschmidt et al., 2009). In contrast, our lab (OSF Registries | The effect of unimodal and multimodal information on lexical decision and free recall in younger and older adults) found a multimodal benefit over unimodal information for both age groups for lexical decision accuracy and memory recall. The different findings may have been due to our study using a multimodal condition that did not use a sufficiently redundant multimodal condition. In our study, both the auditory and visual targets were the same language-based word stimuli, likely processed by language parts of the brain for both modalities. This is different to the work from Laurienti’s lab as they used the actual colour red or blue alongside the auditory word for their multimodal condition (Laurienti et al., 2006; Hugenschmidt et al., 2009). Our lab (|The effect of unimodal and multimodal information in a low-level detection task in younger and older adults) attempted to replicate Laurienti’s paradigm which is based on the response to the colour of a disk that is red or blue (visual colour), the words red or blue (auditory speech), or both of the above (multimodal: colour-speech). We included additional conditions in which the red and blue disks are replaced with the words ‘red’ and ‘blue’, either alone (visual word) or in combination with the spoken words (multimodal: word-speech). We hypothesised that young and older adults will benefit equally from the multimodal stimuli when both contain language information, but that older adults will benefit more than young adults when the multimodal stimuli contribute language information that is not present in the visual stimulus. The results showed no interaction effects between age group (young, old) and modality (auditory speech, visual colour, visual words, audiovisual colour-speech, audiovisual word-speech) for accuracy or response time. However, a multimodal benefit was found over comparable unimodal information for both age groups for response time. Therefore, we did not replicate the multisensory information boost for older adults compared to younger adults (Laurienti et al., 2006). The lack of congruency between our findings and Laurienti et al.’s (2006) prompted our lab to contact the corresponding author. After helpful discussions with the author, the current study aims to directly replicate Lauirenti et al. (2006) by including task-irrelevant green stimuli. Task-irrelevant green stimuli are to be ignored by the participant when presented unimodally (visual colour or auditory speech). In contrast, during a multimodal (colour-speech) presentation, the green stimulus is only ever presented along with a blue or red stimulus (i.e., there are no congruent green multisensory trials) and in this instance, participants are instructed to respond to the red or blue stimulus and ignore the green. Therefore, Laurienti’s paradigm requires participants to always respond to the colour of a disk that is red or blue (visual colour), the words red or blue (auditory speech), or whenever red or blue is presented in at least one of the modalities (visual, auditory) in the multimodal (visual colour - auditory speech) presentation. In line with the findings of Laurienti et al. (2006), we hypothesise that older adults will disproportionally benefit from the integration of multisensory information in comparison to younger adults.

As population demographics shift towards a greater proportion of older adults in society (ONS,2018; United Nations DESA, 2017) it is more important than ever to identify strategies that improve quality of life in old age. Several studies using simple low-level stimuli have shown that older adults benefit more from multisensory stimuli than do young adults (Diederich, Colonius, & Schomburg, 2008; de Boer-Schellekens & Vroomen, 2014; Laurienti et al., 2006; Peiffer et al., 2007). In contrast, learning and memory paradigms have shown that both young and older adults benefit equally from multisensory stimuli. For instance, in problem solving (van Gerven et al., 2006) and word recall (Constantinidou & Baker, 2002). However, there is insufficient research to fully understand how the benefit of multisensory stimuli on processing speed could influence performance on memory and reasoning tasks. The current study builds on this research to show how sensory support, by presenting stimuli in multiple sensory modalities (audiovisual) instead of one, may further help older adults improve their memory and cognitive processing. We propose that multisensory stimuli can alleviate age-related deficits typically found in memory tasks by supporting cognitively demanding perceptual processing.

Previous research found that the number of items that can be maintained in imagination is severely capacity limited, and its capacity is lower than that of working memory (Atkin, Guest, Howard, Baguley & Baker, in preparation). However, little is known about how many features can be maintained within imagination, and whether the capacity is the same or different to known capacities in visual memory (visual working memory, visual short-term memory).

Previous research found that the amount of items that can be maintained in the imagination of young adults is severely capacity limited, and its capacity is lower than that of visual working memory (VWM; Atkin, Howard, Baguley, Baker & Guest, under review). However, it would be interesting to investigate if the findings can be replicated in healthy older adults. Older adults generally have larger sensory deficits relative to younger adults, and many age deficits in cognition can be statistically explained by older adults’ deficits in hearing and sight. For example, older adults typically have psychophysical deficits in visual function compared to younger adults (see Li & Lindenberger, 2002; Owsley, 2010, for reviews). In line with this framework, if VWM is enhanced by utilising visual input, then such an enhancement may be smaller in older adults because their senses have declined. Therefore, the difference between VWM and imagination performance might be smaller for older adults than for young adults. It would be particularly interesting if older adults showed no imagination deficit relative to young adults. Alternatively, older adults generally have reduced executive function compared to younger adults (Ferguson, Brunsdon, & Bradford, 2021). Moreover, imagination generation and maintenance has been shown to require a greater reliance on top-down connections than VWM (Albers et al., 2013; Dijkstra, et al., 2017), with these connections being associated with executive function (Mayer et al., 2007; Nobre et al., 2004; Zanto, Rubens, Thangavel & Gazzaley, 2011). On the basis of this research, if imagination requires greater executive function, then older adults’ performance will be reduced relative to young adults as older adults’ executive function have declined. Therefore, the difference between VWM and imagination performance might be larger for older adults than for young adults. The current study builds on this research to investigate if the findings from Atkin et al. (under review) can be replicated in older adults

This thesis investigates the influence of regional culture on young people's decision making when considering post-sixteen educational choices and directions from school. The data is provided by life story interviews with young people - aged eighteen to twenty years, 'born and bred' in Lincolnshire - who have followed four pathways from compulsory education. Within the context of Lincolnshire the influence of rurality is a major element of regional culture and figures in much of the discussion and analysis. The work of Pierre Bourdieu in defining culture through field and habitus is used as a theoretical perspective in the data analysis and conclusions. The research highlights the continued importance of family and community habitus in the decision-making processes of young people. The interviews are used to consider the relative field positions important in defining individuals' post-sixteen pathways. The nature of rurality as a social construct rather than simply a reflection of physical geography is discussed and conclusions offered as to its possible effect on preferred post-sixteen pathways. The relative importance given to physical and social characteristics of rurality is used to construct a series of cultural indicators for rural communities. The data would support the conclusion that new initiatives designed to increase participation rates in post-sixteen education are having some effect, but only among those young people predisposed through family habitus to continuing education. Those young people whose family habitus most closely coincides with pedagogic authority are most likely to operate comfortably within the educational habitus and hence continue with formal education beyond sixteen. The thesis suggests the real differences in habitus between urban and rural communities requires a shift in the policy debate if rural people are to participate fully in the notion of lifelong learning. NB. This ethesis has been created by scanning the typescript original and contains some inaccuracies. In case of difficulty, please refer to the original text.