Chapter 22 Cognitive aging and increased distractibility: Costs and potential benefits

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Abstract

Older adults show a characteristic pattern of impaired and spared functioning relative to younger adults. Elsewhere we have argued that many age-related changes in cognitive function are rooted in an impaired ability to inhibit irrelevant information and inappropriate responses. In this chapter we review evidence that as a direct result of impaired inhibitory processes, older adults tend to be highly susceptible to distraction. We suggest that because the distinction between relevant and irrelevant is seldom either clear or static, distractibility can manifest as either a cost or a benefit depending on the situation. We review evidence that in situations in which it interferes with the current task, distraction is disproportionately detrimental to older adults compared to university aged adults, but that when previously distracting information becomes relevant, older adults show a benefit whereas younger adults do not.

Section snippets

On processing speed

Older adults are substantially slower than younger adults on simple measures of processing speed such as the rate at which a participant can compare two strings of letters and determine whether they are identical or not. Performance on these tasks accounts for a considerable proportion of age-related variance on memory tasks such as free recall and paired associate learning, prompting the claim that reduced processing speed is a major cause of age-related cognitive impairments (see Salthouse,

Fortuitous effects of distraction

To this point we have discussed the negative consequences associated with being distracted by irrelevant information. However, outside the laboratory the delineation between irrelevant and relevant is often fuzzy and tends to change unpredictably. For example, if you are reading a journal article with the aim of finding evidence to support a claim you want to make in a paper you are writing, any data or arguments not directly relevant to your claim could be considered distraction that should be

Conclusion

Aging is associated with a decrease in the ability to inhibit irrelevant information. As a result, older adults are less able to regulate their attention and they end up processing more distracting information than younger adults. In this chapter, we have discussed some of the deleterious effects that increased susceptibility to distraction can have on older adults’ cognitive performance. Inadvertently attending to irrelevant information can slow down processing on simple cognitive tasks (

Acknowledgments

Much of the research reviewed here was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Aging (R37 AGO4306). We thank all of the people who contributed to the various projects.

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