Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, Vol 54, Issue 1 P30-P33, Copyright © 1999 by The Gerontological Society of America
Aging and selective attention: an issue of complexity or multiple mechanisms?
JM Brink and JM McDowd
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA.
Previous studies have shown age-associated deficits in selective attention
that vary as a function of task demands. The present study was conducted to
dissociate the effect of task complexity on age- related performance
differences from qualitative differences in cognitive demands. Twenty-four
young and 24 older adults were administered two versions of the Stroop Test
(Hartley, 1993). The Color- Block version required identifying the color of
a box while ignoring the name of a color printed either above or below the
box. The Color- Word version required naming the color of a word while
ignoring the semantic meaning of the word (a color name). Each version of
the task included a two- and four-color choice condition as a manipulation
of task complexity. Old and young adults performed comparably on the Color-
Block Task, but older adults were significantly impaired on both conditions
of the Color-Word Task, particularly in the four-choice condition. Results
suggest age-related differences in the distinct attentional processes
demanded by each task are not attributable to general slowing.
