Psychology and Aging 1994, Vol. 9, No. 2, 206-215 Copyright 1994 by the American Psychological Association, Inc 0882-7974/94/S3.00 Long-Term Retention of Skilled Visual Search: Do \bung Adults Retain More Than Old Adults? Arthur D. Fisk, Christopher Hertzog, Mark D. Lee, Wendy A. Rogers, and Marjo Anderson-Garlach Young and old Ss received extensive consistent-mapping visual search practice (3,000 trials). The Ss returned to the laboratory following a 16-month retention interval. Retention of skilled visual search was assessed using the trained stimuli (assessment of retention of stimulus-specific learning) and using new stimuli (assessment of retention of task-specific learning). All Ss, regardless of age group, demonstrated impressive retention. However, age-related retention differences favoring the young were observed when retention of stimulus-specific learning was assessed. No age-related retention differences were observed when task-specific learning was assessed. The data suggest that age-related retention capabilities depend on the type of learning assessed. The study of the retention of learned material has had a prominent place in psychology from its earliest days (e.g., Eb- binghaus, 1885/1964; Luh, 1922) and continues to be impor- tant for theory development in areas such as memory and hu- man performance (e.g., Bahrick, 1979; Fisk & Hodge, 1992; Kolers, 1976), instructional system design (e.g., Johnson, 1981; Mengelkoch, Adams, & Gainer, 1971), and the analysis of indi- vidual differences (e.g., Kyllonen & Tirre, 1988; Shuell & Kep- pel, 1970). Unfortunately, relatively little has been written re- garding age-related retention of skilled performance (particu- larly skills learned during senescence). It is fair to say that the understanding of age-related differences in long-term mainte- nance of acquired skills is limited. The present study provides data regarding age-related retention of task- and stimulus-spe- cific search-detection skills after a relatively long-term (16 months) retention interval. Age-Related Retention Performance The results of previous studies that have examined age-re- lated maintenance of knowledge or skills are mixed. Some stud- ies have reported that age does not interact with delay in terms of performance quality (e.g., Charness & Campbell, 1988; Hu- licka & Weiss, 1965; Hultsch & Dixon, 1983; Hultsch, Hertzog, & Dixon, 1984; Meyer, Young, & Bartlett, 1989; Salthouse & Arthur D. Fisk, Christopher Hertzog, Mark D. Lee, and Marjo An- derson-Garlach, School of Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology; Wendy A. Rogers, Department of Psychology, Memphis State Univer- sity. Portions of this research were presented at the Human Factors Soci- ety 36th Annual Meeting (Atlanta, Georgia, 1992) and the Mid-Atlantic Human Factors Conference (Virginia Beach, Virginia, 1993). This research was supported by National Institutes of Health (Na- tional Institute on Aging) Grant RO1AG07654. We would like to thank Lisa Connor for comments on an earlier draft of this article. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Ar- thur D. Fisk, School of Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0170. Electronic mail may be sent to psadfdf- @gi tvml.gatech.edu. Somberg, 1982). Other studies have found that performance disproportionately degrades over the delay interval for older adults compared to young adults (e.g., Cohen & Faulkner, 1984; Harwood & Naylor, 1969; Hulicka & Rust, 1964; Jamieson, 1971; Park, Royal, Dudley, & Morell, 1988). One potential ex- planation for the inconsistent findings may be different learning (in either degree or kind) between young and old adults on the target task. Alternatively, old adults may truly be less able to retain trained performance for some types of tasks but not for others. Such possibilities are, of course, empirical questions. The majority of existing age-related retention studies are lim- ited because of use of short retention intervals. Most age-related retention studies have measured performance after only hours, days, or a few weeks. The few studies that have extended the retention interval generally have not compared young and old adults (see Willis, 1989, for a review). An extended retention interval does seem important for examining age differences in retention. For example, Rybarczyk, Hart, and Harkins (1987) reported that aging did not affect retention of pictures. How- ever, their longest retention interval was 48 hr. In contrast, Park et al. (1988; Park, Puglisi, & Smith, 1986) demonstrated that age-related differences in retention emerged for pictorial stimuli following longer (1 week to 1 month) retention intervals. Age Differences in Skilled Visual Search We assessed subjects' ability to maintain performance on se- mantic-category visual search tasks. In visual search a single item is held in memory and compared to a visual display con- taining more than one item. The task is to determine if (or which) one of the display items matches the item being held in memory. The matching item is referred to as the target, and the remaining items in the display are referred to as the distractors. Practice-related changes in attentional processes involved in detection and localization of visual stimuli have been well-doc- umented over a wide range of stimulus properties (see Fisk & Schneider, 1983). The general conclusion that may be drawn from the literature is that more than one learning mechanism is involved in visual search improvement. Attention training as well as the development of efficient search strategies contribute 206 This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.