Age-Related Differences in Localized Attentional Interference.

Abstract

Attentional selection of an object in the visual field degrades processing of neighboring stimuli in young adults. A pair of experiments examined the effects of aging on such localized attentional interference. In Experiment 1, younger and older observers made speeded same-different judgments of target shapes that varied in spatial separation. Performance declined for both age groups as the distance between targets decreased, but an Age x Distance interaction indicated that the magnitude of this effect was larger for older adults. Experiment 2 ruled out sensory masking as an explanation for these findings. Results indicate that older observers experience losses in the ability to attend to multiple spatially proximal stimuli within the visual field.

Attentional templates regulate competitive interactions among attended visual objects

“…For instance, Bahcall and Kowler (1999) and Mounts and Gavett (2004) observed this surround interference even when the cues signaling the tobe-attended items were removed 500 msec prior to the imperative display, so that the sensory properties of the imperative displays themselves were held constant across changes in separation between the attended items. McCarley et al (2004), similarly, found that spatial interference was eliminated when observers were required to attend to only one, rather than both, of two colored items present within an array of distractors. The effect can thus be described as localized attentional interference.…”

“…Consistent with this prediction, psychophysical studies have shown that attentional processing of one item within the visual field can degrade processing of surrounding stimuli and that the strength of this interference diminishes with increased separation between the items. Same-different judgments of cued stimulus forms, for instance, become increasingly poorer as the cued items are moved nearer one another in the visual field (Cutzu & Tsotsos, 2003;McCarley, Mounts, & Kramer, 2004). Similarly, accuracy in identifying each of two items within a pair of cued stimulus characters is highest when the attended objects are distant within the visual field and becomes poorer as they are moved closer together (Bahcall & Kowler, 1999;Kristjánsson & Nakayama, 2002;McCarley & Mounts, 2007).…”

Age and culture modulate object processing and object-scene binding in the ventral visual area

“…In follow-up experiments, object processing adaptation in the LOC was demonstrated again when older adults were instructed to attend to the central object in the scene, as well as when the older adults viewed the object alone without a background. Thus the nonrecruitment of the LOC when the older adults passively viewed complex pictures appears to represent a perceptual bias driven by age-related changes in visual attention (Madden & Langley, 2003;Maylor & Lavie, 1998;McCarley, Mounts, & Kramer, 2004;Milham et al, 2002;Pringle, Irwin, Kramer, & Atchley, 2001).…”

Effects of spatial separation between stimuli in whole report from brief visual displays

“…Similar arguments can be made with respect to the results of Kristjánsson and Nakayama (2002), McCarley et al (2004), Mounts (2000, Experiment 1; but see Experiment 4), and Mounts and Gavett (2004). The paradigms require that targets are discriminated from distractors, and the reported positive effects of spatial separation may reflect variation in target-distractor discriminability (the difficulty of isolating the targets from the distractors) caused by the variation in spatial separation.…”

“…For example, Cutzu and Tsotsos (2003) and McCarley, Mounts, and Kramer (2004) reported positive effects of separation (improved performance with increasing spatial separation), using a same-different procedure. Mounts (2000) and Theeuwes, Kramer, and Kingstone (2004) found positive separation effects with an attentional capture paradigm.…”