Abstract
Previous research has demonstrated that younger adults are surprisingly poor at detecting substantial changes to visual scenes. Little is known, however, about age differences in this phenomenon. In the 2 experiments reported here, older adults were slower than younger adults in detecting changes to simple visual stimuli. This age difference was beyond what would be expected given known age-related changes in processing speed. Examination of eye movement behavior during the search for change suggested that age-related changes in the useful field of view and degree of cautiousness play a significant role. Speed of processing and 3 age-related eye movement behaviors explained 85% of the variance in change detection latency, eliminating the effect of age.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 754-762 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Psychology and Aging |
| Volume | 21 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 2006 |
Keywords
- Aging
- Attention
- Change blindness
- Eye movements
- Older adults
- Vision
- Visual search