Older Adults Capitalize on Contextual Information to Guide Search

Abstract

Much has been learned about the age-related cognitive declines associated with the attentional processes that utilize perceptual features during visual search. However, questions remain regarding the ability of older adults to use scene information to guide search processes, perhaps as a compensatory mechanism for declines in perceptual processes. The authors had younger and older adults search pseudorealistic scenes for targets with strong or no spatial associations. Both younger and older adults exhibited reaction time benefits when searching for a target that was associated with a specific scene region. Eye movement analyses revealed that all observers dedicated most of their time to scanning target-consistent display regions and that guidance to these regions was often evident on the initial saccade of a trial. Both the benefits and costs related to contextual information were larger for older adults, suggesting that this information was relied on heavily to guide search processes towards the target.

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a Beckman Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship to M.B.N. The authors would like to thank the National Institute on Aging (R01 AG25667 and R01 AG25032) for supporting this research. The authors thank M. Windsor for assistance with data collection.

Notes

Note. Values in parentheses indicate 1 standard error of the mean. Error rates are presented below the reaction time for the corresponding condition.

Note. Values in parentheses indicate 1 standard error of the mean. Error rates are presented below the reaction time for the corresponding condition.

Note. Values in parentheses indicate 1 standard error of the mean.

Note. Values in parentheses indicate 1 standard error of the mean.

Note. Values in parentheses indicate 1 standard error of the mean.

¹On average, in Experiment 1 older adults made more fixations than younger adults in both target-present (5.7 compared to 4.8; F(1, 46) = 13.13, p < .005) and target-absent (8.6 compared to 6.5; F(1, 46) = 18.90, p < .001) trials.