title: Age differences in target identification as a function of retinal location and noise level: examination of the useful field of view.
abstract: Foveal and peripheral target detection were compared in young adults (M age = 22 years) and older adults (M age = 66 years) who were optically corrected for the viewing distance. In a two-alternative, forced-choice task, target letters were presented at 0 degree to 10.5 degrees from fixation. Targets were presented alone, flanked on each side by one noise element (i.e., nontarget letter), or embedded in a horizontal row of 19 noise elements. An Age X Noise Level X Location interaction was obtained, wherein age differences were largest for peripheral targets presented in noise. Slope analyses of latency data showed that the performance of young adults in the high-noise condition was most similar to that of older adults in the low-noise condition. At the functional level, results indicated that aging is associated with a restricted useful field of view. In addition, the data suggest that age differences in search can be described by a model in which older adults take smaller perceptual samples from the visual scene and scan these samples more slowly than do the young adults.
authors.affiliation: University of Notre Dame.
authors.forename: C T
authors.initials: CT
authors.lastname: Scialfa
authors.forename: D W
authors.initials: DW
authors.lastname: Kline
authors.forename: B J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Lyman
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D001288:Attention; D005556:Form Perception; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D009949:Orientation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D011930:Reaction Time; D014794:Visual Fields