The effects of age and exogenous support on visual search performance

The authors investigated whether precueing a location attenuated age-related declines in selective attention and intraindividual variability on a visual search task. The cue improved response time on the single-feature search condition for both young and older adults. On the conjoined-feature search condition, only the older adults used the cue to facilitate performance, particularly when it reduced the number of searched items. The cue also mitigated intraindividual variability observed on both conditions. Not only did the cue facilitate the scaling of attention and improve search strategy, but also it decreased the waxing and waning observed in the older group's performance.