Speed of Visual Search in Old Age: 1950 to 2016

Abstract

Objectives: To review work on the effects of old age on speed of visual search and of discriminations between signals and choices of responses between 1950 and 2016. Methods: Literature review and Brain Google. Results: Mild existential despondency. Discussion: Models for age changes in discrimination between signals and choices of responses have been based on comparisons of speed. The concept of speed has been used in four distinct ways: as a directly measured task performance index, as a hypothetical functional system performance characteristic, as a factor in psychometric models computing mutual variance in calendar age and as a neurophysiological performance characteristic. Since 1950, these measures have, in turn, determined models for speed of perceptual discriminations. Since the 1990s, advances in neuroimaging have not only transformed the data available, but also the nature of the questions that we ask.