Abstract
Inhibition of return (IOR) is thought to reflect a cognitive mechanism that biases attention from returning to previously engaged items. While models of cognitive aging have proposed deficits within select inhibitory domains, older adults have demonstrated preserved IOR functioning in previous studies. The present study investigated whether inhibition associated with objects shows the same age patterns as inhibition associated with locations. Young adults (18–22 years) and older adults (60–86 years) were tested in two experiments measuring location- and object-based IOR. Using a dynamic paradigm (Experiment 1), both age groups produced significant location-based IOR, but only young adults produced significant object-based IOR, consistent with previous findings. However, with a static paradigm (Experiment 2), young adults and older adults produced both location- and object-based IOR, indicating that object-based IOR is preserved in older adults under some conditions. The findings provide partial support for unique age-related inhibitory patterns associated with attention to objects and locations.
Highlights
Visual attention is essential to how we navigate and search through the environment, whether scanning a crowd to find a friend or noticing a motorcycle as it approaches an intersection
Older adults were predicted to show location-based Inhibition of return (IOR), consistent with preserved spatial inhibitory processes mediated through the posterior attention system
We had predicted that young adults would produce objectbased IOR based on findings from other dynamic paradigms (McCrae and Abrams, 2001, Experiment 2; Tipper et al, 1991)
Summary
Visual attention is essential to how we navigate and search through the environment, whether scanning a crowd to find a friend or noticing a motorcycle as it approaches an intersection. Attention is directed within location-based and object-based frames of reference and may involve overlapping but unique attentional mechanisms (Chen, 2012; Reppa et al, 2012; Erel and Levy, 2016). There are unique changes that occur in the aging process that impact the way older adults perceive and respond to their visual environment. While some attention mechanisms are preserved with age, some are sensitive to decline and impact search performance (Foster et al, 1995; Verhaeghen and Cerella, 2002; Madden and Whiting, 2004). As such, aging may be associated with distinct patterns of change in location-based and object-based attention systems
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