Clumping distractors around the target facilitates performance on the visual search task in the elderly

Fifteen elderly participants and 15 young controls were tested on a version of the visual search task to determine if stimulus location had an effect on reaction time (RT). Location was manipulated by presenting the distractors clumped around a target or spread apart on the screen. Elderly participants performed worse overall. Clumping proved to be an important manipulation in the target absent (p < .001), but not the target present, condition. The manipulation of array size (6 versus 12 distractors) proved significant regardless of probe presence (p < .001) or absence (p < .001). Since clumping the distractors significantly improved the search times in the elderly, this suggests that a deficit in attention contributes to an inefficient search strategy in the elderly.