Age-related interference from irrelevant distracters in visual feature search among heterogeneous distracters

• Age-related differences in visual feature search were investigated.
• Participants included 6 and 10 year old children and young adults.
• The importance of top-down and bottom-up search processes was varied.
• Children and adults performed similarly when bottom-up processes were sufficient.
• Age differences were observed when top-down processes facilitated locating targets.

We evaluated age-related variations in the influence of heterogeneous distracters during feature target. Participants in three age groups—6-year-old children, 9-year-old children, and young adults—completed three conditions of search. In a singleton search condition, participants searched for a circle among squares of the same color. In two feature mode search conditions, participants searched for a gray circle or a black circle among gray and black squares. Singleton search was performed at the same level of efficiency for all age groups. In contrast, the two feature mode search conditions yielded age-related performance differences in both conditions. Younger children exhibited a steeper slope than young adults when searching for a gray or black circle. Older children exhibited a steeper slope than young adults when searching for a gray circle but not when searching for a black circle. We concluded that these differences revealed age-related improvements in the relative abilities of adults and children to execute attentional control processes during visual search. In particular, it appears that children found it more difficult to maintain the goal of searching for a circle target than adults and were distracted by the presence of the irrelevant feature dimension of color.