Distraction as a determinant of processing speed

Abstract

Processing speed is often described as a fundamental resource determining individual (e.g., I.Q.) and group (e.g., developmental) differences in cognition. However, most tests that measure speed present many items on a single page. Because many groups with slowed responding are also distractible, we compared younger and older adults on high-(i.e., standard) versus low-distraction versions of two classic speed tasks. Reducing distraction improved the performance of older adults while having little or no effect on younger adults, suggesting that the ability to limit attentional access to taskrelevant information can affect performance on tests designed to measure processing speed. Distraction and Processing SpeedThe idea that "faster is better" is powerful in cars, computing, and cognitive psychology. Group differences, especially age differences, are often ascribed to the better-performing group's faster processing. We report two studies that assessed the contribution of an attentionalperceptual variable, visual distraction, in determining age differences in classic speed tasks.Many standard speed tests use items that are individually simple, but fit many such items onto a single page, resulting in a cluttered, potentially distracting display. Many groups thought to have deficits in processing speed also have difficulties regulating attention, and thus might be especially vulnerable to distraction. These groups include children, older adults, poor readers, and young adults who score less well on intelligence tests (e.g.,

Iterative refinement of a tailored system for self-care management of depressive symptoms in people living with HIV/AIDS through heuristic evaluation and end user testing

“…Comments received in the usability evaluation sessions regarding the design of HIV TIDES were very similar to experiences reported by developers of other disease management systems [14][15][16][17][18][19]. It was proposed that navigation and information design should be clear, use frames intuitively, have one item per page, require minimal scrolling, and fit page content within the frame body [14].…”

Timing is everything: Age differences in the cognitive control network are modulated by time of day.

“…Lustig et al, 2001). We focus here on regulation of distraction because of its well-known time of day effects for older adults and because it has been shown to correlate with other cognitive functions including working memory capacity and fluid intelligence (Hasher and Zacks, 1988;Dempster, 1991Dempster, , 1992Lustig et al, 2006).…”

“…Lustig et al, 2001). We focus here on regulation of distraction because of its well-known time of day effects for older adults and because it has been shown to correlate with other cognitive functions including working memory capacity and fluid intelligence (Hasher and Zacks, 1988;Dempster, 1991Dempster, , 1992Lustig et al, 2006).To address the question of distraction regulation by older adults -and the neural correlates of this ability across the day, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging and tested a group of elderly participants at an optimal time of day (~8AM) and compared their performance on a simple 1-back task with target information (pictures or words) superimposed by distraction to that of younger and older participants tested at ~3pm, some of whose data had been previously collected (Campbell et al, 2012). We report dramatic differences in activity patterns across the day, with older adults tested in the morning having neural activity that is closer to that of young adults than is the case for older adults tested in the afternoon.…”

Specificity of inhibitory deficits in normal aging and Alzheimer's disease

“…Processing speed was assessed with a letter comparison task, which is a computerized version of the task initially proposed by Salthouse and Babcock [86]. The interest of this task is that it induces no distraction from task-irrelevant information, susceptible to deteriorate the speed performance of elderly subjects [71]. Participants were presented with pairs of letters and their task was to decide as quickly and accurately as possible whether the letters were the same or different, by pressing a response-key.…”