Age differences and similarities in the effects of cues and prompts.

A series of 6 experiments investigated the use of cues and prompts by younger and older adults. Cues provide useful information about an impending target, even though the information is not always valid. Prompts provide an instruction about what aspect of the target is to be responded to. The costs and benefits of cues were most consistent with models in which the attentional resources that are shifted in response to the cue were as large or larger in older adults as they were in younger adults. The results with both cues and prompts converged on the conclusion that the time course of processing and using a cue or prompt is the same in younger and older adults. The attentional resources tapped by these procedures cannot be the diminished processing resource to which many age differences in cognitive performance are attributed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adult age differences in the inhibition of return of visual attention.

Responses to targets are slower when they appear at a location to which attention has previously been directed than when they appear at other locations. This inhibition of return (IOR) effect is subserved by posterior brain attentional systems. In 4 experiments the IOR effect in elderly adults was found to be at least as large as in young adults for both discrimination tasks and for detection tasks. The time course and the spread of inhibition within the visual field were also equivalent in the 2 age groups. Additive factors logic was then used to test the hypothesis that the Stroop and IOR effects are due to a common mechanism, a failure to suppress attention. This hypothesis was not confirmed. The results of the 6 experiments are consistent with the hypothesis that there are changes in posterior brain systems responsible for selective attention to a location, contrary to prior claims. They cannot be explained by a general slowing of processing in old age. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age-related equivalence of identity suppression in the Stroop color-word task.

Previous failures to find reliable identity suppression (identity negative priming) in older adults have led to conclusions that older adults suffer from an impairment in the inhibitory component of selective attention. Here, 2 experiments using the Stroop procedure found identity suppression in older adults that was both reliable and equivalent to that in younger adults. Experiment 1 with repeated target colors produced correlations consistent with an episodic retrieval explanation of identity suppression, Experiment 2 without repeated targets produced correlations inconsistent with the episodic retrieval interpretation. These patterns were found for both younger and older adults. No evidence was found for reduced identity suppression that would be consistent with a general inhibitory impairment in older adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)