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Attention and Processing Speed
Book chapter

Attention and Processing Speed

Benjamin D Lester, Daniel B Vatterott and Shaun P Vecera
The Wiley Handbook on the Aging Mind and Brain, pp.337-361
John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
04/18/2018
DOI: 10.1002/9781118772034.ch17

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Abstract

A broad survey of the aging and attention literature illustrates cognitive aging is complex and multifactorial. This chapter examines the interaction of aging and selective attention. It emphasizes the visual modality, focusing on several experimental methodologies used to quantify selective attention in the laboratory. The chapter also examines how observed patterns of behavior informed early models of attentional functioning in aging adults. It explores the overarching theme that changes in processing speed and explains behavioral performance patterns in advancing age. The chapter discusses classic models of aging, and how these models provided the foundation for contemporary theories of aging and attention. Modern conceptualizations of aging and attention have expanded considerably beyond a processing speed account into models of distributed functional connectivity in the brain. The chapter also discusses recent interventional approaches designed to slow the course of cognitive aging through various “neuroenhancement” techniques.
visual modality attentional processing speed behavioral performance patterns selective attention neuroenhancement techniques cognitive aging

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