Effects of aging on interference control in selective attention and working memory

Cansino, Selene; Guzzon, Daniela; Martinelli, Massimiliano; Barollo, Michele; Casco, Clara · 2011 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.3758/s13421-011-0109-9

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Summary

This study investigates the specific mechanisms of interference control that contribute to age-related declines in working memory. While it is widely accepted that older adults struggle with interference, it remains unclear whether this deficit stems from failures in selective attention (filtering external distractors, termed "access") or working memory maintenance (suppressing irrelevant internal representations, termed "deletion"). Cansino et al. (2011) aimed to disentangle these processes by evaluating both access and deletion functions within the same subjects under equivalent conditions, addressing inconsistencies in prior literature where these mechanisms were often tested separately or confounded with other cognitive demands. The researchers employed a novel visuospatial working memory paradigm using Gabor stimuli to minimize verbal and cultural biases. Participants included 25 young adults (21–30 years) and 25 older adults (61–75 years), matched for education and neuropsychological status. In each trial, subjects viewed two sequential stimuli containing missing Gabor elements. A cue indicated which stimulus was relevant. In the "access" condition, the cue appeared before the stimuli, requiring subjects to filter out the irrelevant stimulus during perception. In the "deletion" condition, the cue appeared after both stimuli, requiring subjects to suppress the irrelevant stimulus from memory. Control conditions used neutral cues, requiring memory of both stimuli. Performance was measured via accuracy and intrusion errors (responding based on the irrelevant stimulus). The results revealed distinct age-related patterns for the two mechanisms. Memory accuracy improved for both young and older adults in the access condition compared to the control, indicating that older adults retained the ability to filter irrelevant external information during perception. However, only young adults showed improved accuracy in the deletion condition compared to its control. Furthermore, older adults exhibited significantly larger intrusion effects in the deletion condition than young adults, demonstrating a specific failure to suppress irrelevant internal representations. These findings suggest that the general ability to control interference does not decline uniformly with age; rather, the deficit is specific to the deletion mechanism operating on working memory contents. The study concludes that age-related working memory decay is driven specifically by a decline in the ability to delete or inhibit irrelevant information already held in memory, rather than a failure to filter external distractions. This distinction clarifies conflicting results in previous research by isolating the locus of the deficit. The findings imply that interventions or models of aging should focus on the maintenance and updating processes of working memory, particularly the suppression of competing internal representations, rather than general attentional filtering capabilities.

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• cognitive aging