Older people more focused than younger adults – study
Older people are more focused, less anxious, and less mentally restless than younger adults, a newly published Irish study is reporting.
Researchers from the Institute of Neuroscience (TCIN) at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) found that older adults appeared to mitigate the negative aspects of cognitive decline by increasing motivation and adopting more efficient strategies to suspend the wandering mind when focus was required.
The paper, published in the February 2021 edition of the American Psychological Association’s journal
Psychology and Aging (
PAA), was the first to investigate competing theories of age-related mind-wandering.
The ‘Dockree Lab’ team at TCIN, in a collaboration with Prof. Alan Smeaton from Dublin City University, looked at whether the nature and frequency of mind-wandering changed with age.
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New research from Trinity College Dublin suggests that older adults can be more focused, less impeded by anxiety and less mentally restless than younger adults. The team at the Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience (TCIN) (today, Wednesday, 10th February, 2021) show that older adults appear to mitigate the negative aspects of cognitive decline by increasing motivation and adopting more efficient strategies to suspend the wandering mind when focus is required.
The study, published in the journal
Psychology and Aging (American Psychological Association) is the first to adjudicate between competing theories of age-related mind-wandering dominant in the field. It highlights the influential roles of affective and motivational factors in driving age-related differences in unintentional mind-wandering and provide reasons to be less persuaded by previous cognitive resources accounts.