Neural correlates underlying local and global processing during visual search across adulthood

Visual processing largely relies on the identification of the hierarchical levels of visual stimuli, from the largest global level (e.g., large circle) to the most local elements (e.g., small squares). People are faster at detecting information at the global level, relative to the local level and incongruent global information usually slows down the detection at the local level. We aimed to investigate for the first time the brain mechanisms behind local and global prosessing during a visual search task of compound hierarchical stimuli in early and late adulthood.