Host: The Japanese Society for Cognitive Psychology
We investigated the relationship between the visuospatial attention and the focused attention in the elderly. Twenty-one right-handed adults over 65 years old was given a Posner-type gaze-cueing task and Digital Cancellation Test (D-CAT). Each trial of the gaze-cuing task began with the face with eyes which looked toward left or right followed by a target presented at the left or right visual-field. They were required to the location of the presented target. In D-CAT, the participants were instructed to search specified digits and to delete each one with a slash mark, as quickly and accurately as possible. The results showed that the cueing effect was positively correlated with the total performance in D-CAT, while the inhibition of return (IOR) effect was negatively correlated with that. These results suggested that the focused attention plays a role in visuospatial attention for older adults.
