Abstract
Healthy older adults often have problems to ignore irrelevant information. A lack of executive control upon irrelevant signals might be a core deficit affecting also higher level cognitive functions such as working memory. Here we show the origin of that deficit in a cuing task and demonstrate that older adults are not only unable to ignore irrelevant stimuli, but process them like relevant ones. Ample processing time can help to overcome this deficit.
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Wascher, E., Wild-Wall, N. & Falkenstein, M. Lost in information. On the processing of irrelevant signals in normal ageing. Nat Prec (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/npre.2008.2489.1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/npre.2008.2489.1