title: Impact of age, redundancy, and perceptual noise on visual search.
abstract: We examined adult age differences in the impact of redundancy and perceptual noise during visual search. Using a two-choice, visual search task, subjects responded to letters presented in one to four corners of an imaginary display square. On each trial, one, two, or three instances of a given target letter were presented. In the target-plus-noise condition, all nontarget corners of the imaginary square were filled with distractor (i.e., noise) letters. In the target-only condition, all nontarget corners were left blank. The results indicated that older adults showed relatively greater redundancy benefits than the young adults for the target-plus-noise trials than for the target-only trials. These results are interpreted within an internal noise framework.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Cleveland State University, OH 44115.
authors.forename: P A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Allen
authors.forename: D J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Madden
authors.forename: K E
authors.initials: KE
authors.lastname: Groth
authors.forename: L C
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: Crozier
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D014796:Visual Perception