Do Ability-Performance Relationships Differentiate Age and Practice Effects in Visual Search?

Relationships between abilities and performance in visual search were investigated for young and old adults. Ss received extensive practice on category search task. A consistent version allowed development of an automatic attention response; a varied version allowed general performance improvements. Transfer conditions assessed learning. General ability, induction, semantic knowledge, working memory, perceptual speed, semantic memory access, and psychomotor speed were assessed. LISREL models revealed that general ability and semantic memory access predicted initial performance for both ages. Improvements on both the consistent and varied tasks were predicted by perceptual speed. Ability-performance relationships indexed performance changes but were not predictive of learning (i.e., automatic process vs. general efficiency). Qualitative differences in the ability-transfer models suggest age differences in learning.