Effect of Age on Attentional Control in Dual-Tasking

Abstract

A marked age-related difference was found in the ability to control attentional focus in response to task instructions. However, increasing resource demand in a parametric manner does not increase the age-related differences in dual-tasking, suggesting that the difficulties experienced by older adults cannot be entirely accounted for by an increased competition for resources. A reduction in attentional control skills is proposed to account for the divided attention deficit reported in aging.

Storage and processing in working memory: Assessing dual-task performance and task prioritization across the adult lifespan.

“…In summary, the present study suggests an age-related difficulty in maintaining verbal information in mind while performing a concurrent processing task. This finding may be related to other previous reports of age-effects which have been seen in slowing of processing responses in tasks without a strict response deadline (Bier et al, 2017;, although this awaits direct testing. Our findings are also consistent with a preserved ability of older adults to shift priority between conflicting tasks that are titrated to individual ability (Somberg & Salthouse, 1982;Salthouse et al, 1984).…”

“…These findings, as well as other findings of dual task costs in younger adults even under titrated demands with different tasks to ours (M. Anderson et al, 2011;Bier et al, 2017) or low memory loads (Chen & Cowan, 2009;Vergauwe et al, 2014), are difficult to reconcile with the notion that trade-off between storage and processing is only observed when individual components are overloaded (Logie, 2011). So in what way can we accommodate these findings within the multiple component model?…”

“…Further, we would also expect them to delay processing operations when the task allows, as has been observed in previous experiments (e.g. Bier et al, 2017;Fanuel et al, 2018;.…”

“…Thus, according to this view, a major determinant of whether simultaneous storage and processing comes at a cost in individuals of different ages is the extent to which the demand of each task has been titrated to account for age differences in single task performance (for a similar argument, see Somberg & Salthouse, 1982;Salthouse, Rogan, & Prill, 1984). Indeed, it has been observed, at least in some research with small numbers of participants, that there are no age differences in the ability to simultaneously store and process information, provided each task has been titrated to individual ability (M. Anderson et al, 2011;Baddeley et al, 1986;Baddeley, Baddeley, Bucks, & Wilcock, 2001;Belleville et al, 1998;Logie et al, 2004; although see Bier, Lecavalier, Malenfant, Peretz, & Belleville, 2017;Logie, Della Sala, MacPherson, & Cooper, 2007), a point to which we return below.…”

“…These findings place important constraints on each of these theories and we have described how each could be modified in response to these data. To account for these findings, and other findings of dual task conflict even under titrated conditions (M. Anderson et al, 2011;Bier et al, 2017), the assumption of the multiple component model must be that many components contribute to span measures and that tasks conflict to the extent to which they overlap in the components that drive span. This is a sensible suggestions but, without an explanation of what components contribute in what situations, it makes the multiple component model functionally equivalent to a resource sharing model.…”