Adult Age Differences in the Implicit and Explicit Components of Top-Down Attentional Guidance During Visual Search

Two experiments investigated adult age differences in the explicit (knowledge-based) and implicit (repetition priming) components of top-down attentional guidance during discrimination of a target singleton. Experiment 1 demonstrated an additional contribution of explicit top-down attention, relativ...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychology and aging 2005-06, Vol.20 (2), p.317-329
Main Authors: Madden, David J, Whiting, Wythe L, Spaniol, Julia, Bucur, Barbara
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Adult. Elderly
Age Differences
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Aging - psychology
Attention
Biological and medical sciences
Cognitive Discrimination
Developmental psychology
Experiments
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Human
Humans
Knowledge
Learning
Male
Middle Aged
Older people
Priming
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Reaction times
Repetition priming
Selective Attention
Task performance
Task Performance and Analysis
Visual Perception
Visual Search
Visual searching
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Summary:Two experiments investigated adult age differences in the explicit (knowledge-based) and implicit (repetition priming) components of top-down attentional guidance during discrimination of a target singleton. Experiment 1 demonstrated an additional contribution of explicit top-down attention, relative to the implicit effect of repetition priming, which was similar in magnitude for younger and older adults. Experiment 2 examined repetition priming of target activation and distractor inhibition independently. The additional contribution of explicit top-down attention, relative to the repetition priming of distractor inhibition, was greater for older adults than for younger adults. The results suggest that some forms of top-down attentional control are preserved as a function of adult age and may operate in a compensatory manner.
ISSN:0882-7974
1939-1498
DOI:10.1037/0882-7974.20.2.317