More evidence that older adults become less able to ignore distraction

December, 2010

A new study adds to the evidence that our ability to focus on one thing and ignore irrelevant information gets worse with age, and that this may be a crucial factor in age-related cognitive impairment.

A study involving young (average age 22) and older adults (average age 77) showed participants pictures of overlapping faces and places (houses and buildings) and asked them to identify the gender of the person. While the young adults showed activity in the brain region for processing faces (fusiform face area) but not in the brain region for processing places (parahippocampal place area), both regions were active in the older adults. Additionally, on a surprise memory test 10 minutes later, older adults who showed greater activation in the place area were more likely to recognize what face was originally paired with what house.

These findings confirm earlier research showing that older adults become less capable of ignoring irrelevant information, and shows that this distracting information doesn’t merely interfere with what you’re trying to attend to, but is encoded in memory along with that information.

Reference:

[1994] Schmitz, T. W., Cheng F. H. T., & De Rosa E. (2010). Failing to Ignore: Paradoxical Neural Effects of Perceptual Load on Early Attentional Selection in Normal Aging. J. Neurosci.. 30(44), 14750 - 14758.

Source:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-11/uot-bat110210.php

Add new comment

Recent posts at Mynd

Infants’ slow gaze may signal autism later A study involving 97 infants, of whom 56 were at high risk of an autism spectrum disorder, has found that the high-risk infants later found to...	Genetic test shows risk of cognitive impairment rather than Alzheimer’s Analysis of data from 418 older adults (70+) has found that carriers of the ‘Alzheimer’s gene’, APOEe4, were 58% more likely to...	Re-organization more important than changes in brain size A new finding points to brain reorganization, rather than brain size, as the driver in primate brain evolution. Data from 17 anthropoid primate...	Ability to delay gratification predicts success only in some contexts There's been a lot of talk in education about the message from research that self-control in pre-schoolers predicts their later success in the...
Help on not getting sidetracked Assuredly one of my biggest problems! and I'm sure I'm not alone, is the ever-present difficulty in not getting sidetracked. So much to do! So...	How to provide support for friends with Alzheimer's The New York Times' New Old Age blog has a lovely and helpful account of how a group of friends are supporting a friend with Alzheimer’s....	The Science and Art of the Diagram Following the (historically) brief period when we became fixated on text as the sole reliable source of information and means of...	Fiber in your diet reduces stroke risk Analysis of eight studies on diet and stroke published between 1990 and 2012 has found that risk of first-time stroke dropped with every 7g...
Temperature affects your ability to make decisions Matching patterns of sales data for lottery games in one American county for a year against daily temperature has revealed that sales for...	Caffeine gives honeybees memory boost Caffeine occurs naturally in the nectar of coffee and citrus flowers. A study of honeybees has revealed that those fed on caffeinated nectar...	Regular exercise throughout life helps keep aging mind sharp Data from the very large, long-running UK National Child Development Study has revealed that those who exercised at least four times weekly as...	Deep brain therapy effective in early Parkinson’s A 2-year trial involving 251 patients with Parkinson's disease and early motor complications (mean age, 52 years; mean duration of disease, 7.5...
Human astrocytes key to human intelligence? More evidence for the importance of glia...	PTSD for many ventilated during intensive care A study involving 520 intensive care patients who had been put on ventilators for acute lung injury (ALI), of whom 186 patients of the 275...	Why high blood pressure can be so dangerous for memory Brain scans of 61 older adults (65-90), of whom 30 were cognitively healthy, 24 cognitively impaired and 7 diagnosed with dementia, found that,...	Cognitive problems common in young people with MS A study involving 187 children and adolescents with multiple sclerosis, plus 44 who experienced their first neurologic episode (clinically...

Latest news

More evidence that older adults become less able to ignore distraction

Recent posts at Mynd

User login