There are volumes of information available to process in visual scenes. Visual spatial attention is a critically important selection mechanism that prevents these volumes from overwhelming our visual system's limited-capacity processing resources. We were interested in understanding the effect of the size of the attended area on visual perception. The prevailing model of attended-region size across cognition, perception, and neuroscience is the zoom-lens model. This model stipulates that the magnitude of perceptual processing enhancement is inversely related to the size of the attended region, such that a narrow attended-region facilitates greater perceptual enhancement than a wider region. Yet visual processing is subserved by two major visual pathways (magnocellular and parvocellular) that operate with a degree of independence in early visual processing and encode contrasting visual information. Historically, testing of the zoomlens has used measures of spatial acuity ideally suited to parvocellular processing. This, therefore, raises questions about the generality of the zoom-lens model to different aspects of visual perception. We found that while a narrow attended-region facilitated spatial acuity and the perception of high spatial frequency targets, it had no impact on either temporal acuity or the perception of low spatial frequency targets. This pattern also held up when targets were not presented centrally. This supports the notion that visual attendedregion size has dissociable effects on magnocellular versus parvocellular mediated visual processing.

Spatial attention is a necessary cognitive process, allowing for the direction of limited capacity resources to varying locations in the visual field for improved visual processing. Thus, understanding how ageing influences these processes is vital. The current study explored the relationship between the spatial spread of attention and healthy ageing using an inhibition of return task to tap visual attention processing. This task allowed us to measure the spatial distribution of inhibition, and thus acted as a marker for attentional spread. Past research has indicated minimal age differences in inhibitory spread. However, these studies used placeholder stimuli, which may have restricted the range over which age differences could be reliably measured. To address this, in Experiment One, we measured the relationship between the spatial spread of inhibition and healthy ageing using a method which did not employ placeholders. In contrast to past research, an age difference in inhibitory spread was observed, where in comparison to younger adults, older adults exhibited a relatively restricted spread of attention. Experiment Two then confirmed these findings, by directly comparing inhibitory spread for placeholder present and placeholder absent conditions, across younger and older adults. Again, it was found that age differences in inhibitory spread emerged, but only in the placeholder absent condition. Possible reasons for the observed age differences in attention are discussed.

Objective: To report our experience in a series of children with single-sided sensorineural deafness where a bone-anchored hearing device (BAHD) was used for auditory rehabilitation. Study Design: Retrospective case review. Setting: Tertiary referral centre. Patients: Eight children (4 boys and 4 girls) who had BAHD surgery for single-sided sensorineural deafness between 2007 and 2010.

Attention is often captured by irrelevant but salient changes in the environment and usually results in slowed search speeds and increased errors during a typical visual search task. Nonetheless, a recent study conducted by Moher (2020) found that the effect of a highly salient distractor on visual search depended on whether or not a target was also present in the display. While the distractor slowed search and increased errors for target-present trials, it speeded search for targetabsent trials. Here, we aimed to replicate this finding and explore a potential boundary condition to the effect by manipulating the overall salience of the distractor. We did this by changing the size of the distractor to make it more or less salient. In Experiment 1, participants conducted a target-present and target-absent visual search task in the presence of a large, delayed-onset color distractor similar to that used in Moher (2020). In Experiment 2, a distractor that was much smaller than that used in the original Moher study was utilized. Critically, when a large distractor was used, the original findings of Moher (2020) were largely replicated; large salient distractors speeded target-absent visual search and increased errors for target-present visual search. However, when a smaller distractor was used, results differed. For target-absent trials, search speeds were slower when the distractor was present compared to when it was absent. Thus, it appears that a highly salient distractor might be needed to trigger a shift in visual search strategy, and subsequently, lower quitting thresholds.