Visuo-spatial attention in younger and older adults: comparing performance on a series of computer-based tasks.

Older adults demonstrated significantly slower response times compared to younger adults across all four computer-based visual attention tasks.

• 125 participants were tested: 51 younger adults (aged 18-30) and 74 older adults (aged 65-90)
• The finding was consistent across all four tasks in the battery
• Each task lasted approximately 5 minutes
• Response time (ms) was one of two primary performance measures alongside accuracy (%)

Accuracy was largely comparable between younger and older adults across most tasks.

• Despite slower response times, older adults did not show substantially lower accuracy overall
• This pattern was consistent across the majority of the four computer-based tasks
• The dissociation between speed and accuracy suggests aging primarily affects processing speed rather than correctness in these tasks

In the feature visual search task, older adults demonstrated superior accuracy compared to younger adults, particularly on the right side of space.

• This finding was specific to the feature visual search task among the four tasks administered
• The superior accuracy in older adults was especially pronounced for stimuli presented on the right side of space
• This represents an exception to the general pattern of comparable accuracy between age groups

A more pronounced leftward bias, indicative of pseudo-neglect, was observed in the younger group compared to older adults.

• The leftward bias was described as 'more pronounced' in younger adults
• This phenomenon is referred to as 'pseudo-neglect' in the literature
• The finding suggests that pseudo-neglect may diminish with aging
• This pattern was observed more generally across the task battery

Increasing task demands had a greater impact on older adults' performance than on younger adults.

• Adding a dynamic component to tasks increased the performance impact on older adults
• Introducing more complex or a larger number of distractors also disproportionately affected older adults
• This differential effect of task complexity suggests age-related differences in attentional resources or processing capacity

The study used a cross-sectional observational design with a battery of four computer-based tasks previously demonstrated to have sensitivity in detecting spatial bias.

• Sample consisted of 125 participants: 51 younger adults (18-30 years) and 74 older adults (65-90 years)
• Each task lasted approximately 5 minutes
• Performance measures included both response time (ms) and accuracy (%)
• Tasks were selected based on prior evidence of sensitivity to spatial bias detection