Attention and Planning in Older Adults

Abstract

In a study with 48 adults between 65 and 97 years of age, we examined the influence of working memory, inhibitory efficiency, and attentional flexibility on the ability to solve efficiently a complex planning task: 26 of the subjects were living independently in their own home, and 22 subjects were recruited from nursing homes. Subjects first participated in a number of cognitive ability tests. They then had to plan a trip for a group of 20 people. The results indicate that inhibitory efficiency combined with the flexible use of attentional resources can account for substantial amounts of variance in the planning task. The results support the view that chronological age does not necessarily predict the performance in rather complex cognitive tasks like planning. The data also point at the possibility that deficits in one information-processing component can be compensated by other information-processing components that improve or remain stable in older adults. In order to predict adjustment to everyday contexts it might be necessary to consider individual, differentiated patterns of performance in a variety of basic information-processing components.

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