Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Efficient selection of targets is crucial in everyday activities across the lifespan. Studies reporting age-related declinehave, however, typically utilised arrays of simple, unrealistic objects. Using real-world scenes, we investigated how reliability ofscene semantics (consistent vs. inconsistent targets), target template specificity (name vs. precise picture) and target perceptualsalience influence oculomotor search behaviour in older vs. young viewers. Aging resulted in slower search considering initialsaccade latency, time and number of fixations to locate the target, and verification of object-template matching. No groupdifferences emerged in accuracy and in search facilitation due to a pictorial template or a semantically consistent target. Targethigh salience enhanced efficiency in both groups, with stronger effects in older viewers. Aging seems therefore to lead to anoverall search speed reduction not due to specific deficits in utilisation of scene semantic guidance or in target recognition, andpossibly reduced by enhancing target perceptual guidance.