Reflexive orienting in response to short- and long-duration gaze cues in young, young-old, and old-old adults.

Shifting visual focus on the basis of the perceived gaze direction of another person is one form of joint attention. In the present study, we investigated whether this socially relevant form of orienting is reflexive and whether it is influenced by age. Green and Woldorff (Cognition 122:96-101, 2012) argued that rapid cueing effects (i.

Timing of reflexive visuospatial orienting in young, young-old, and old-old adults.

This study examined adult age differences in reflexive orienting to two types of uninformative spatial cues: central arrows and peripheral onsets. In two experiments using a Posner cuing task, young adults (ages 18-28 years), young-old adults (60-74 years), and old-old adults (75-92 years) responded to targets that were preceded 100-1,000 ms earlier by a central arrow or a peripheral abrupt onset. In Experiment 1, the cue remained present upon target onset.