Age Differences and Practice in Forward Visual Masking

Abstract

Three groups of subjects of mean age 24-, 65, and 74-years were contrasted with respect to performance on a forward visual masking task. Twenty-five-year-olds required 24.5 msec to escape masking, 65-year-olds required 52.2 msec, and 74-year-olds, 69.5 msec. These findings suggested that increased age yields a rise in susceptibility to forward masking by visual noise. The effects of practice on age reduction in the interstimulus interval required to escape masking for each age group. There was, however, no significant interaction between age and practice.