Abstract
This experiment examined the effects of age on processing resource capacity using an endogenous visuospatial precuing task and four levels of resource demands. Younger and older adults made speeded two-choice responses to dim and bright targets that required a line-orientation or a lexical decision. An arrow preceding target onset served as an attentional cue to affect the spatial distribution of resources. It provided accurate information about the target’s location on most trials and inaccurate or neutral information on the remaining trials. Although older adults were slower than younger adults under all conditions and were more affected by the resource demand manipulations, they exhibited a pattern of precuing effects across conditions that was similar to that of the younger adults. Results are consistent with the idea that the visuospatial attention system remains relatively unaffected by aging. However, the data speak against the idea that capacity reduction is the primary contributor to age-related slowing.
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The research was supported by a University of Iowa Aging Seed Grant and NIH BRS Grant 2S07RR0735-23 awarded to L.D.Z., a Sigma Xi Grant-in-Aid of Research awarded to D.J.T., and NINDS Grant PO-NS19632, on which D.A.R. is an investigator. This article is based on a master thesis by D.J.T. under the supervision of L.D.Z. The research was conducted in the Department of Psychology at the University of Iowa. Pilot data for this study were collected by Melissa Brewer in partial fulfillment of her honor’s research thesis. Portions of this research were presented at the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, November 1991, in San Francisco. The technical assistance of Kevin Schartz, Keith Miller, and Lloyd Frei is gratefully acknowledged, as is the statistical advice of Don Dorfman and George Woodworth.
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Tellinghuisen, D.J., Zimba, L.D. & Robin, D.A. Endogenous visuospatial precuing effects as a function of age and task demands. Perception & Psychophysics 58, 947–958 (1996). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03205496
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03205496