Object-based attentional selection and aging.
The authors conducted 2 studies to examine potential age-related differences in object-based attentional selection. Participants were briefly presented with pairs of wrenches and were asked to make 1 response if both target properties (i.e., an open end and a hexagonal end) were present and another response if only a single target property was present in the display. The critical manipulation was whether the target properties were present on 1 wrench or distributed between 2 wrenches. Space-based models of selective attention predict no difference in performance between these conditions. However, object-based attentional selection models predict better performance when both target properties appear on a single object. The results from both of the studies were consistent with object-based models of attentional selection. Furthermore, both young and old adults showed similar performance effects, suggesting the object-based attentional selection is insensitive to normal aging.
Kramer
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Beckman Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 61801, USA. akramer@s.psych.uiuc.edu
Weber
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TA
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D003210:Concept Formation / Q000502:physiology; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D014836:Volition / Q000502:physiology*