Abstract
Younger and older adults were compared in three experiments, using procedures that had been shown to affect the spread of visual attention. The attentional effects found in previous experiments were replicated. A broader focus of attention speeded responses to peripheral targets. In addition, two established findings concerning aging were replicated: Responses were slower in older than in younger adults, and, in certain conditions, they slowed more rapidly as target eccentricity increased. No interactions of age effects with attentional manipulations were found. The results of all three experiments were consistent with the interpretation that younger and older adults do not differ in the allocation of attention.
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Support for the first author during the preparation of this report was provided by National Institute on Aging Senior Postdoctoral Fellowship F33 AG05433 and the School of Psychology at Georgia Institute of Technology. We are indebted to Vincent Brown for working out the procedure for obtaining maximum likelihood estimates of the reaction time-eccentricity slopes.
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Hartley, A.A., Kieley, J. & Mckenzie, C.R.M. Allocation of visual attention in younger and older adults. Perception & Psychophysics 52, 175–185 (1992). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03206771
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03206771