When age is irrelevant: distractor inhibition and target activation in priming of pop-out.

OBJECTIVES: Recent research suggests that inhibition at early stages of visual processing may be age invariant. We test this proposal using a priming of pop-out (PoP) measure developed by Lamy, Antebi, Aviani, and Carmel (2008. Priming of pop-out provides reliable measures of target activation and distractor inhibition in selective attention. Vision Research, 48, 30-41. doi:10.1016/j.visres.2007.10.009). In PoP, a unique item, which visually "pops-out" in a field of distractors, grabs our attention faster when its defining feature (e.g., color red) repeats across trials and slower when distractor- and target-defining features switch between trials. Here, we explore whether the processes underlying PoP, which prevent access to distractors and facilitate access to the singleton, remain intact with age.
METHOD: Participants faced a display of circles and judged the direction of a letter T inscribed within a uniquely colored circle.
RESULTS: All underlying components of PoP were present in older and younger adults. Participants revealed distractor inhibition by responding faster to a color singleton when the color of surrounding distractors repeated and slower when the singleton assumed the color of distractors from the previous trial. DISCUSSION: Our findings suggest that the inhibitory processes underlying PoP remain intact with age.