Age differences in dimension weighting on visual feature search

Two experiments examined age-difference effects in visual feature search for two types of prior information (knowledge about target-defining features and intertrial transition of target-defining features). In Experiment 1, younger participants had shorter reaction times searching for a target in blo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Visual cognition 2004-08, Vol.11 (6), p.721-750
Main Authors: Kumada, Takatsune, Hibi, Yuko
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult. Elderly
Biological and medical sciences
Developmental psychology
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Perception
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Vision
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Summary:Two experiments examined age-difference effects in visual feature search for two types of prior information (knowledge about target-defining features and intertrial transition of target-defining features). In Experiment 1, younger participants had shorter reaction times searching for a target in blocks where the target was defined by a single feature dimension compared to where the target was defined across dimensions (within-dimension facilitation; WDF). However, WDF was not found in older participants. Intertrial facilitation (ITF), a dimension-based carryover effect in consecutive trials, was observed both for young and older participants. Experiment 2 provided participants with probabilistic knowledge about target-defining features. Again, young participants showed a facilitatory effect related to this knowledge, but this effect was reduced in older participants. However, intertrial facilitation was observed for young and older adults to the same degree. These results are not consistent with general age-related decrement in the maintenance of dimension weighting, but support a dual mechanism of dimension weighting (Kumada, 2001). The results suggest that knowledge-based control of dimension weighting declined with ageing, but involuntary shift of dimension weighting by intertrial transition of target-defining features is maintained in ageing.
ISSN:1350-6285
1464-0716
DOI:10.1080/13506280344000491