AGING AND SCANNING OF IMAGINED AND PERCEIVED VISUAL IMAGES

The authors examined adult age differences in the proficiency of visua lly scan,ling across perceived and imaged displays. Participants were asked to indicate whether an arrow in the central region of a square g rid ring pointed to a target square. The distance between arrow and ta rget was varied, and all participants showed the expected increase in response times and error rates as scanning distance increased. The arr ow and grid display either remained visible until the participant resp onded (perceptual condition) or disappeared after 50 ms (imagery condi tion). In both conditions, older participants required more time to sc an and made more errors as distance increased than did younger partici pants. These findings conflict with previous studies showing that perc eptual and imagery scanning are preserved with aging. Although methodo logical factors may have contributed to these differences, further res earch is needed to elucidate effects of aging on visual scanning.