Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, 75 East River Road, S251 Elliott Hall, Minneapolis, MN, 55455, USA.
Psychon Bull Rev. 2017 Aug;24(4):1135-1141. doi: 10.3758/s13423-016-1214-3.
Visual clutter imposes significant challenges to older adults in everyday tasks and often calls on selective processing of relevant information. Previous research has shown that both visual search habits and task goals influence older adults' allocation of spatial attention, but has not examined the relative impact of these two sources of attention when they compete. To examine how aging affects the balance between goal-driven and habitual attention, and to inform our understanding of different attentional subsystems, we tested young and older adults in an adapted visual search task involving a display laid flat on a desk. To induce habitual attention, unbeknownst to participants, the target was more often placed in one quadrant than in the others. All participants rapidly acquired habitual attention toward the high-probability quadrant. We then informed participants where the high-probability quadrant was and instructed them to search that screen location first-but pitted their habit-based, viewer-centered search against this instruction by requiring participants to change their physical position relative to the desk. Both groups prioritized search in the instructed location, but this effect was stronger in young adults than in older adults. In contrast, age did not influence viewer-centered search habits: the two groups showed similar attentional preference for the visual field where the target was most often found before. Aging disrupted goal-guided but not habitual attention. Product, work, and home design for people of all ages--but especially for older individuals--should take into account the strong viewer-centered nature of habitual attention.
视觉杂乱给老年人在日常任务中带来了重大挑战，常常需要选择性地处理相关信息。先前的研究表明，视觉搜索习惯和任务目标都会影响老年人的空间注意力分配，但尚未研究当这两种注意力源竞争时，它们各自的相对影响。为了研究衰老如何影响目标驱动和习惯性注意之间的平衡，并深入了解不同的注意力子系统，我们在一项改编的视觉搜索任务中测试了年轻人和老年人，该任务涉及一个平铺在桌上的显示。为了引起习惯性注意，参与者并不知道目标出现的概率是不均衡的，即目标更频繁地出现在一个象限而不是其他象限。所有参与者都迅速养成了对高概率象限的习惯性注意。然后，我们告知参与者高概率象限的位置，并指示他们先搜索该屏幕位置，但通过要求参与者相对于桌子改变他们的身体位置，将他们基于习惯的、以观察者为中心的搜索与指令相对抗。两个组都优先在指示的位置进行搜索，但这种效果在年轻人中比在老年人中更强。相比之下，年龄并不影响以观察者为中心的搜索习惯：两组对目标最常出现的视野表现出相似的注意力偏好。衰老会干扰目标导向的注意力，但不会干扰习惯性注意力。面向所有年龄段的人——尤其是老年人——的产品、工作和家庭设计都应该考虑到习惯性注意强烈的以观察者为中心的性质。
