Age-related differences in the time course of visual novelty preference for categorical and functional associations of real-world objects

Novel information is attentionally prioritised, as empirically shown using the Visual Paired Comparison task (VPC). This attentional orienting reflects associative memory processes and is influenced by the strength of encoding for familiar items. Memory associations rely on perceptual and affordance-related features to establish categorical (e.g., apricot/grape) and functional (e.g., nut/nutcracker) relationships between objects. Yet, it is still unclear how these associations can impact their encoding strength in memory, indirectly influence attentional guidance when objects are explored, and whether age-related changes may alter these processes. This eye-tracking study adapted the classic VPC task to investigate the attentional dynamics of the novelty preference (NP) while manipulating categorical and functional relationships between object pairs. Twenty-five younger and twenty-four older adults were familiarised with object pairs, varying in the above-mentioned relationships, and then tested with novel and familiar pairs. We measured changes in the odds ratio of fixation proportion between novel and familiar pairs over the test trials, which were transformed into empirical logits. Growth-curve analysis revealed that functionally related pairs determined a stronger NP than categorically related pairs in younger adults than older ones. This indicates a greater reliance of older adults on categorical information to organise and store functional relationships in memory. These findings provide theoretical insights into how conceptual knowledge's hierarchical organisation mediates overt attention allocation, with action-oriented functional associations enabling stronger representations. Furthermore, they highlight age-related shifts in encoding conceptual associations, suggesting that categorical associations serve as cognitive scaffolds to support the organization and integration of functional relationships in ageing memory processes.