TY - JOUR
T1 - Age-related differences during visual search
T2 - the role of contextual expectations and cognitive control mechanisms
AU - Borges, Miguel T
AU - Fernandes, Eunice G
AU - Coco, Moreno I
N1 - Funding
This work was supported by the Leverhulme Trust with an Early Career Research Fellowship (ECF-2014-205) awarded to MIC.
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - During the visual search, cognitive control mechanisms activate to inhibit distracting information and efficiently orient attention towards contextually relevant regions likely to contain the search target. Cognitive ageing is known to hinder cognitive control mechanisms, however little is known about their interplay with contextual expectations, and their role in visual search. In two eye-tracking experiments, we compared the performance of a younger and an older group of participants searching for a target object varying in semantic consistency with the search scene (e.g., a basket of bread vs. a clothes iron in a restaurant scene) after being primed with contextual information either congruent or incongruent with it (e.g., a restaurant vs. a bathroom). Primes were administered either as scenes (Experiment 1) or words (Experiment 2, which included scrambled words as neutral primes). Participants also completed two inhibition tasks (Stroop and Flanker) to assess their cognitive control. Older adults had greater difficulty than younger adults when searching for inconsistent objects, especially when primed with congruent information (Experiment 1), or a scrambled word (neutral condition, Experiment 2). When the target object violates the semantics of the search context, congruent expectations or perceptual distractors, have to be suppressed through cognitive control, as they are irrelevant to the search. In fact, higher cognitive control, especially in older participants, was associated with better target detection in these more challenging conditions, although it did not influence eye-movement responses. These results shed new light on the links between cognitive control, contextual expectations and visual attention in healthy ageing.
AB - During the visual search, cognitive control mechanisms activate to inhibit distracting information and efficiently orient attention towards contextually relevant regions likely to contain the search target. Cognitive ageing is known to hinder cognitive control mechanisms, however little is known about their interplay with contextual expectations, and their role in visual search. In two eye-tracking experiments, we compared the performance of a younger and an older group of participants searching for a target object varying in semantic consistency with the search scene (e.g., a basket of bread vs. a clothes iron in a restaurant scene) after being primed with contextual information either congruent or incongruent with it (e.g., a restaurant vs. a bathroom). Primes were administered either as scenes (Experiment 1) or words (Experiment 2, which included scrambled words as neutral primes). Participants also completed two inhibition tasks (Stroop and Flanker) to assess their cognitive control. Older adults had greater difficulty than younger adults when searching for inconsistent objects, especially when primed with congruent information (Experiment 1), or a scrambled word (neutral condition, Experiment 2). When the target object violates the semantics of the search context, congruent expectations or perceptual distractors, have to be suppressed through cognitive control, as they are irrelevant to the search. In fact, higher cognitive control, especially in older participants, was associated with better target detection in these more challenging conditions, although it did not influence eye-movement responses. These results shed new light on the links between cognitive control, contextual expectations and visual attention in healthy ageing.
KW - Visual search
KW - cognitive ageing
KW - contextual expectations
KW - cognitive control
KW - eye-tracking
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85075926918&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/13825585.2019.1632256
DO - 10.1080/13825585.2019.1632256
M3 - Article
VL - 27
SP - 489
EP - 516
JO - Aging Neuropsychology and Cognition
JF - Aging Neuropsychology and Cognition
SN - 1382-5585
IS - 4
ER -