Age differences in sustained attention tasks: A meta-analysis

Abstract

Many aspects of attention decline with aging. There is a current debate on how aging also affects sustained attention. In this study, we contribute to this debate by meta-analytically comparing performance on the go/no-go Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART) in younger and older adults. We included only studies in which the SART had a low proportion of no-go trials (5%–30%), there was a random or quasirandom stimulus presentation, and data on both healthy younger and older adults were available. A total of 12 studies were suitable with 832 younger adults and 690 older adults. Results showed that older adults were slower than younger adults on go trials (g = 1, 95% CI [.72, 1.27]) and more accurate than younger adults on no-go trials (g = .59, 95% CI [.32, .85]). Moreover, older adults were slower after a no-go error than younger adults (g = .79, 95% CI [.60, .99]). These results are compatible with an age-related processing speed deficit, mostly suggested by longer go RTs, but also with an increased preference for a prudent strategy, as demonstrated by fewer no-go errors and greater posterror slowing in older adults. An inhibitory deficit account could not explain these findings, as older adults actually outperformed younger adults by producing fewer false alarms to no-go stimuli. These findings point to a more prudent strategy when using attentional resources in aging that allows reducing the false-alarm rate in tasks producing a tendency for automatic responding.

A multimodal analysis of sustained attention in younger and older adults

“…Collectively the data were most consistent with the hypothesized pattern of results in Figure 1B (speed difference + better sustained attention). The data were also consistent with prior work showing similar patterns in both traditional vigilance tasks (Tomporowski & Tinsley, 1996), and go/no-go tasks like the SART (Brache et al, 2010;Staub et al, 2014aStaub et al, , 2014cStaub et al, , 2015Vallesi et al, 2021). The present results cannot resolve the discrepancies observed between go/no-go tasks and other cognitive control tasks.…”

“…The present results cannot resolve the discrepancies observed between go/no-go tasks and other cognitive control tasks. That is, older adults tend to show more Stroop interference and reduced proactive control in continuous performance tasks, (e.g, AX-CPT; Braver, Satpute, Rush, Racine, & Barch, 2005;Bugg, 2014a;Paxton et al, 2006;Vallesi et al, 2021), but they show fewer no-go errors in the SART (Vallesi et al, 2021). We used the PVT specifically because it does not involve resolving conflict or inhibiting a prepotent response.…”

“…In a go/no-go task, Staub et al (2014c) observed that younger adults showed a vigilance decrement across time, but older adults did not, and that older adults also reported being more motivated and reported fewer TUTs than younger adults (see also Brache, Scialfa, & Hudson, 2010;Staub et al, 2014a;Staub, Doignon-Camus, Marques-Carneiro, Bacon, & Bonnefond, 2015). In fact, a recent meta-analysis of SART performance concluded that, although older adults show slower RTs on "go" trials, they exhibit fewer false alarms on "no-go" trials and show greater post-error slowing compared to younger adults (Vallesi et al, 2021). Staub et al (2014aStaub et al ( , 2014cStaub et al ( , 2015 suggest that traditionally vigilance tasks, which require responses on a rare subset of trials, differ substantially from tasks like the SART, which require responses to be withheld on a rare subset of trials, and this produces the discrepancies between such tasks and SART-like tasks.…”

A Novel Perspective on the Proactive and Reactive Controls of Executive Function in Chronic Stroke Patients

“…Therefore, deficits in sustained attention are likely to be a contributing factor to the impaired proactive control of stroke patients. However, previous studies indicated that motivation, fatigue, and mind wandering might have a negative effect on sustained attention for elderly people ( 29 ). Proactive control generally requires more effort, subsequently leads to more fatigue, which is most likely associated with the tendency to favor reactive over proactive control.…”

EEG‐neurofeedback and executive function enhancement in healthy adults: A systematic review

“…Indeed, many studies provided evidence for an age‐related decline in executive functions, among other domains, showing that healthy older adults perform poorer than the younger counterparts on executive function tasks documenting for instance working memory deficits, reduced inhibitory control, and decreased task‐switching ability (MacPherson et al., 2015 ; West, 1996 ; Zanto & Gazzaley, 2019 ; but see Vallesi et al., 2021 ). As EEG‐NFT could be a potentially effective method to counteract this age‐related executive function decline, we assessed whether, to date, studies have provided reliable evidence for its effectiveness.…”