An in-depth summary of chapter 3 of the prescribed textbook 'Adult Development and Ageing'. These notes are based on the exam scope for the June exams.
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Psychology 210
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CHAPTER 3 NOTES
Attention
Large amounts of information enter the sensory register.
o Sensory register: The physiological point or sensor organ such as the eyes, ears, mouth,
nose and skin where information such as sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch enter the
sensory information system.
This is the first step in information processing.
The individual needs to pay attention to incoming sensory stimuli to process information.
o Attention: The state in which cognitive resources are focused on certain aspects of the
environment rather than on others, while the central nervous system is in a state of
readiness to respond to stimuli.
It is often a short-lived cognitive state.
The inability to focus attention can have serious consequences for children and adults.
o A lapse in attention at a crucial moment of decision-making, such as missing important
information or not noticing that the car ahead of you has slowed down, can be disastrous.
Attention is important when cognitive resources must be utilized to focus on a goal when
further cognitive operations (like problem-solving) have to be performed.
Attentional skills are strongly correlated with other cognitive skills
o Declines in attention can have far-reaching effects on a person's ability to function adequately
and efficiently in everyday life.
Levels of attention:
Sustained attention: The ability to concentrate on a task without being distracted.
o Seems to be well preserved in later life.
There is some decline with age, but the extent of the decline is hard to
measure.
Selective attention: The ability to concentrate on a task while there are other
distracting stimuli present.
o Many situations in life require selective attention.
Eg. Screening out perceptual noise (e.g. concentrating on one's studies while
a party is going on in the room next door), or tasks requiring visual search
(e.g. looking for a particular brand of washing powder on a shelf in a
supermarket that contains a whole range of washing powders).
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, o Some studies hold different findings.
Evidence suggests that older adults exhibit a decline in selective
attention.
Eg. While the ability to select relevant information is well preserved in
ageing, older adults tend to experience more difficulty in ignoring or
suppressing irrelevant or unimportant information. They also show a
decline in suppressing perceptual
However, older adults seem to employ additional neural connectivity to
perform the task at the same level as young adults.
Switching attention: Alternating attention between 2 or more tasks.
o Individuals must carry out 2 different tasks, shifting between them according to
some rule (eg. Reading a recipe and executing the steps provided) or follow a
cue (eg. Following the prompts on your computer and executing the
commands).
o This shifting of attention reflects the demand of holding 2 sets of task rules in
working memory and managing their application.
o Older adults are slower at some tasks, but they do not make more errors than
younger adults.
Divided attention: Required when the individual has to attend to and process more
than one source of information at the same time.
o Eg. While managing the vehicle, one simultaneously has to follow the road signs
or the instructions along the road or the GPS.
o Age-related effects on attentional processes become more obvious when cognitive
or daily life tasks require multiple or divided attentional skills, for both younger and
older adults.
However, the more difficult the competing tasks are, the less effectively older
adults divide attention than younger adults do.
Executive attention: Involves aspects of thinking that include the planning of actions,
allocating attention to goals, detecting and compensating for errors, monitoring
progress on tasks, and dealing with new or difficult circumstances.
o Older adults are affected by novel, complex tasks that require more than one
attentional process and performing high-level cognitive activities involving
memory, reasoning, language, problem-solving and planning.
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, Tasks involving attention, require the individual to focus or select cognitive resources for a
specific task or stimulus input.
Theories regarding the possible decline or changes in attentional processes during the ageing
process:
The attentional resources theory.
o Attentional resources: The amount of attention available to perform cognitive
tasks that require effort and where the ability to distribute attention is under
the control of the individual.
o Proposes that the availability of attentional capacity and efficient distribution of
attentional resources decline with age.
This is especially true for some complex cognitive tasks as well as
everyday multitasking situations that require attention to be divided.
The inhibitory deficit theory.
o This theory focuses on the ability to ignore or suppress irrelevant information or
stimuli and focus on relevant stimuli or goals.
o Older adults’ ability to block out irrelevant stimuli tends to be affected
negatively.
This implies that if attention to distracters is not inhibited, some attentional
resources will be wasted on unimportant stimuli, with the result that too
little attentional capacity will remain to process the important target stimuli.
This could result in the slowing of responses, an increase in slips of
action and thought, and difficulties in remembering details.
o It seems that inhibitory efficiency may be related to other factors.
Eg. As tasks become more complex, the sources of distraction are likely to
be more extensive, thus affecting the performance of older adults, often
slowing responses and increasing errors in a wide range of tasks.
o Older adults encode the distractive information.
o It seems that inhibitory efficiency with optimal control over distracting thoughts or
stimuli.
Suggesting that both older and younger adults’ inhibitory functioning may
be influenced by their alertness. (Older peak in the morning and younger in
the afternoon.
The neurological approach.
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