Age Differences in Visual Statistical Learning: Investigating the Effects of Selective Attention and Stimulus Category

A cognitive function that is of interest when investigating age-related changes is statistical learning—the ability to detect and extract regularities in sensory information from our rich, dynamic, and complex environment. A previous study has suggested that there were age differences in visual statistical learning, with older adults demonstrating visual statistical learning of attended and unattended information (due to the “hyper-binding effect”). In the present study, we were interested in investigating whether there are age differences in visual statistical learning and whether stimulus category influenced visual statistical learning of unattended information in older adults. We tested two stimulus categories: highly familiar line drawings and abstract shapes. Participants completed a selective-attention task, in which regularities were embedded into both the attended and unattended visual streams. Then, participants completed a triplet-discrimination task, which assessed their ability to extract regularities from the attended and unattended visual streams. We also implemented a 4-point confidence-rating scale in the triplet-discrimination task as an assessment of participants’ awareness of these regularities. There were four key findings. First, selective attention modulates visual statistical learning, with greater visual statistical learning for attended information than for unattended information. Second, there were age differences in visual statistical learning, but these differences were only observed for visual statistical learning of attended information. Third, stimulus category did not affect visual statistical learning of unattended information in older adults. Fourth, visual statistical learning occurs with awareness of statistical regularities.