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Citation |
Potter LM, Grealy MA, Elliott MA, Andrés P. Acta Psychol. 2012; 140(3): 208-217. |
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Affiliation |
Department of Psychology, School of Life Sciences, John Muir Building, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh EH14 4AS, Scotland, UK. |
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Copyright |
(Copyright © 2012, Elsevier Publishing) |
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DOI |
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PMID |
22664318 |
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Abstract |
Research on aging and visual search often requires older people to search computer screens for target letters or numbers. The aim of this experiment was to investigate age-related differences using an everyday-based visual search task in a large participant sample (n=261) aged 20-88years. Our results show that: (1) old-old adults have more difficulty with triple conjunction searches with one highly distinctive feature compared to young-old and younger adults; (2) age-related declines in conjunction searches emerge in middle age then progress throughout older age; (3) age-related declines are evident in feature searches on target absent trials, as older people seem to exhaustively and serially search the whole display to determine a target's absence. Together, these findings suggest that declines emerge in middle age then progress throughout older age in feature integration, guided search, perceptual grouping and/or spreading suppression processes. Discussed are implications for enhancing everyday functioning throughout adulthood. Language: en |