Visuospatial attention: effects of age, gender, and spatial reference.

Visual attention is remarkably stable when spatial cuing is used, but non-spatial cues lead to slowing among females and older subjects. Non-spatial cues are associated with poorer performance during the middle stages of the menstrual cycle. Motivation increased overall response speed but not attentional measures, whereas increasing age was associated with generalized slowing and directional asymmetries. Right-eye dominance was correlated with slow responses to downward targets. These data suggest that attentional performance is modified by age, gender, and endocrine status when spatial reference is not present.