We seek to understand the psychological and biopsychological aspects of normal and pathological aging in terms of attention and attentional processes. We are also concerned with applying that knowledge to develop strategies for improving attentional and cognitive functioning. This year we were concerned with the basis for an age decrement in attending to auditory input in the presence of competing auditory noise and in how involuntary attentional shifts to internal stimuli are related to thought production. We have evidence supporting the conclusion that older adults have greater difficulty selecting appropriate auditory input when competing input is occurring. Furthermore, this greater difficulty appears to be unrelated to health status as determined by the presence of chronic disease. Involuntary attentional shifts to internal stimuli were found to occur more often in adults who were hyperactive as children and less often with deeper levels of depression. This outcome supports the view that involuntary shifts of attention to internal mental events may be driven by the level of thought production in the brain. Over the next year we plan to examine the contribution of attentional dysfunction to cognitive dysfunction to cognitive dysfunction in normal aging and in pathological aging such as Alzheimer's disease.
