Processing Consequences of Perceptual Grouping in Selective Attention

Farkas, Mitchell S.; Hoyer, William J.

doi:10.1093/geronj/35.2.207

Cited by 61 publications

(41 citation statements)

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“…Wright and Elias (1979) found significantly smaller response compatibility effects for old than for young subjects. However, Farkas and Hoyer (1980) found that old subjects' performance was more severely disrupted than young subjects' when they responded to a target in the presence of similarly shaped distractors (see also R. Shaw, 1991). Cerella (1985a) hypothesized that these discrepant findings might be the result of uncontrolled age-related acuity differences rather than attentional factors.…”

Section: Stopping Taskmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aging and inhibition: Beyond a unitary view of inhibitory processing in attention.

Kramer

Humphrey

Larish

et al. 1994

Psychology and Aging

618

467

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The authors examined the question of whether a decrease in the efficiency of inhibitory processing with aging is a general phenomenon. Thirty elderly and 32 young adults performed a series of tasks from which the authors could extract measures of inhibitory function. The tasks and task components included response compatibility, negative priming, stopping, spatial precuing, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), and the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ). Only limited evidence for age-related differences in inhibitory function was obtained. Old adults had more difficulty than young adults in stopping an overt response and adopting new rules in a categorization task. However, elderly and young adults produced equivalent negative priming effects, response compatibility effects, spatial precuing effects, and self-reported cognitive failures. The findings are discussed in terms of the relationship between aging, inhibitory processes, and neuroanatomical and physiological function.A dominant view in the aging literature is that cognitive decline in later life is the result of a progressive and generalized slowing of information-processing activities (Birren, 1974;Cerella, 1990;Salthouse, 1992). Much of the evidence for such a view has been provided through reanalyses of existing data sets (Cerella, 1985b;Myerson, Hale, Wagstaff, Poon, & Smith, 1991;Salthouse, 1985). Examination oflarge numbers of tasks has suggested that reaction times (RTs) of elderly subjects can be described as simple linear or nonlinear functions of young subjects' RTs, without reference to the specific nature of the tasks. Although this generalized-slowing view provides a good account of RT data in a multitude of studies (but see Baron & Mattila, 1989;Fisk, Fisher, & Rogers, 1992), such a view has, for the most part, been descriptive rather than theoretical in nature (but see Cerella, 1990).An important question is what processes or mechanisms are responsible for this generalized slowing that occurs during aging? One relatively recent proposal that could provide the theoretical basis for generalized slowing concerns inhibitory function. Hasher and Zacks (1988; see also Zacks & Hasher, in press) suggested that age-related processing deficits in a variety of cog- We are indebted to Susan Gass for assistance in data collection, with special thanks to Heather Pringle for her invaluable assistance in data management and project organization. We express our appreciation to Tram Neill and Joan McDowd for their helpful comments on a draft of this article.Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Arthur F. Kramer, Beckman Institute, University of Illinois, 405 North Mathews Avenue, Urbana, Illinois 61801. nitive skills could be accounted for by a decrease in the efficiency of inhibitory processing during aging. More specifically, inefficient inhibition could result in ineffective selective attention, which could, in turn, result in the intrusion of task irrelevant information into working memory. The consequences of the entrance of...

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Section: Stopping Taskmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aging and inhibition: Beyond a unitary view of inhibitory processing in attention.

Kramer

Humphrey

Larish

et al. 1994

Psychology and Aging

618

467

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…It has frequently been reported that aging is accompanied by a loss in the ability to ignore distractor information (e.g., Farkas & Hoyer, 1980;Hoyer et al, 1979;Madden, 1992;Plude & Hoyer, 1986;Rabbitt, 1965;Wright & Elias, 1979). Although these findings can be accounted for in a variety of ways (for reviews, see Hartley, 1992;Madden & Plude, 160 L. Kotary and W .…”

Section: Lisa Kotary and William J Hoyermentioning

confidence: 99%

Age and the Ability To Inhibit Distractor Information in Visual Selective Attention

Kotary

Hoyer

1995

Experimental Aging Research

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Adult age differences in the effects of different types of distractor interference on visual search were examined. Young adults (mean age = 18.5 years) and older adults (mean age = 69.5 years) performed a target-counting task that required a complete search of a visual display in each trial. Varying numbers of targets were presented alone in displays or were interspersed among eight distractor items that were either categorically related (letters) or conceptually related (numbers representing either the correct number or the incorrect number of targets in the display) to the target item (letter Q). An adult age difference in the speed of target enumeration was observed when targets were presented alone in the display. In addition, when targets appeared with distractors, both younger and older adults were penalized more by conceptually interfering distracters than by categorically related distractors. Results did not suggest an age-related decline in inhibitory processes.

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“…It should be noted that if the target location is constant there is little or no difference due to aging (Carlson, Hasher, Connelly, & Zacks, 1995;Farkaas & Hoyer, 1980). Older people appear to benefit more than younger people when presented with advance cues indicating the future location of a visual search target (Kline & Scialfa, 1996).…”

Section: Vision and Agingmentioning

confidence: 99%