Abstract
ABSTRACTLife expectancy has steadily increased for over a century; we thus live longer and are more likely to experience cognitive difficulties such as increased distractibility which can hamper autonomy. This cross-sectional behavioral study aimed to characterize the decline of the cognitive components of distractibility during typical aging, and the onset of this decline. 191 participants from 21 to 86 years old, distributed within seven age groups, were tested using the Competitive Attention Test. Results indicate that cognitive components contributing to distractibility follow different trajectories with aging: voluntary orienting remains stable from 21 to 86 years old, sustained attention decreases while distraction increases between 26 and 86 years old, finally, impulsivity is lower in older compared to younger adults. Increased distractibility in older adults thus seems to result from a dominance of involuntary over voluntary attention processes, whose detrimental effect on performance is partly compensated by enhanced recruitment of motor control.
Publisher
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Reference68 articles.
1. Age differences in the neural correlates of distraction regulation: A network interaction approach
2. The effect of age on involuntary capture of attention by irrelevant sounds: A test of the frontal hypothesis of aging
3. AN INTEGRATIVE THEORY OF LOCUS COERULEUS-NOREPINEPHRINE FUNCTION: Adaptive Gain and Optimal Performance
4. Barratt, E. S. , & Patton, J. H. (1983). Impulsivity: Cognitive, behavioral, and psycholophysiological correlates. In M. Zuckerman (Ed.), Biological bases of sensation seeking, impulsivity and anxiety. (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates., pp. 77–122).
5. Fitting Linear Mixed-Effects Models Using lme4;Journal of Statistical Software,2015
Cited by
1 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献