Age-related Differences in Mind-wandering: Implications for Attentional Control
Loading...
Date
2017-05
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The Ohio State University
Abstract
Aging is associated with declines in cognitive functioning, notably in the domain of attentional control, which requires goal maintenance in the face of task-irrelevant distractions. Despite such declines in sustained attentional control, older adults report less mind-wandering (MW), or the redirecting of attention from a task-relevant goal to internal thoughts, compared with young adults. Interestingly, whereas there is unequivocal evidence for the negative association between MW and attentional control performance in young adults, evidence for the functional costs of MW among older adults is discrepant, warranting further examination of the implications of MW on performance, particularly based on its content qualities. The current study investigated age-related differences in the frequency, temporal focus, and judgmental nature of MW and their associations with performance. Seventy-five older adults and 50 young adults completed two computerized tasks measuring sustained attention: a Go/No-Go task, and the Continuous Performance Task. In both tasks, MW was measured using quasi-random probes prompting participants to describe their thoughts. MW was classified as task-unrelated thought (TUT) or task-related interference (TRI), defined as evaluative thoughts concerning task performance. Across both tasks, older adults reported fewer MW episodes, specifically fewer proportions of TUTs, compared with young adults. Although there was no difference in the judgmental nature of these MW thoughts, older adults reported less past-focused MW and more present-focused MW than young adults. Interestingly, MW negatively impacted performance for both older and young adults, with TRIs explaining critical variance in accuracy scores. The results of this study support the negative impact of MW for functional performance across the developmental spectrum.
Description
2nd place, Psychology Undergraduate Research Colloquium
1st Place, Denman Undergraduate Research Forum
1st place, Undergraduate Three-minute Thesis Competition
1st Place, Denman Undergraduate Research Forum
1st place, Undergraduate Three-minute Thesis Competition
Keywords
mind-wandering, attention, aging, cognitive control