The Influence of Perceptual Load on Age Differences in Selective Attention

The effect of perceptual load on age differences in visual selective attention was examined in 2 studies. In Experiment 1, younger and older adults made speeded choice responses indicating which of 2 target letters was present in a relevant set of letters in the center of the display while they atte...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychology and aging 1998-12, Vol.13 (4), p.563-573
Main Authors: Maylor, Elizabeth A, Lavie, Nilli
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Adult. Elderly
Age Differences
Aged
Aging
Aging - physiology
Analysis of Variance
Attention - physiology
Biological and medical sciences
Cognition & reasoning
Developmental psychology
Discrimination (Psychology)
Eyes & eyesight
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Human
Human Channel Capacity
Humans
Influences
Inhibition (Psychology)
Male
Perceptual load
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Reaction Time
Selective Attention
Sensory perception
Signal Detection, Psychological
Space life sciences
Visual Perception
Visual Perception - physiology
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Summary:The effect of perceptual load on age differences in visual selective attention was examined in 2 studies. In Experiment 1, younger and older adults made speeded choice responses indicating which of 2 target letters was present in a relevant set of letters in the center of the display while they attempted to ignore an irrelevant distractor in the periphery. The perceptual load of relevant processing was manipulated by varying the central set size. When the relevant set size was small, the adverse effect of an incompatible distractor was much greater for the older participants than for the younger ones. However, with larger relevant set sizes, this was no longer the case, with the distractor effect decreasing for older participants at lower levels of perceptual load than for younger ones. In Experiment 2, older adults were tested with the empty locations in the central set either unmarked (as in Experiment 1) or marked by small circles to form a group of 6 items irrespective of set size; the 2 conditions did not differ markedly, ruling out an explanation based entirely on perceptual grouping.
ISSN:0882-7974
1939-1498
DOI:10.1037/0882-7974.13.4.563