Aging, selective attention, and inhibitory processes: A psychophysiological approach.

Investigated the efficiency with which younger and older adults allocate attention to relevant and irrelevant stimuli. The model of attention guiding this research links the orienting response with the allocation of attention and habituation with the inhibition of the allocation of attention. The authors adapted a paradigm developed by W. G. Iacono and D. T. Lykken (1983) in which Ss are instructed unambiguously either to attend or to ignore a series of innocuous tones, and the skin conductance orienting response elicited by each tone is measured. Results revealed that young Ss instructed to ignore the tones habituated more quickly than did those instructed to attend to the tones. However, older adults exhibited nondifferential orienting across the 2 instruction conditions. These results suggest an age-related deficit in the ability to inhibit attention to irrelevant stimuli. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)