Abstract
Under instructions to ignore distraction, younger and older adults read passages with interspersed distracting words. Some of the distractors served as solutions to a subsequent set of verbal problems in which three weakly related words could be related by retrieving a missing fourth word (i.e., the Remote Associates Test [RAT]; Mednick, 1962). Older adults showed significant priming from the distraction, whereas younger adults did not. In this study, we present a case in which age-related reductions in attentional control over information that was not initially relevant can actually lead to superior performance for older adults. The RAT materials may be downloaded from www.psychonomic.org/archive.
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This research was supported by Grant R37 AGO4306 from the National Institute on Aging.
Note—Accepted by David A. Balota’s editorial team.
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Kim, S., Hasher, L. & Zacks, R.T. Aging and a benefit of distractibility. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 14, 301–305 (2007). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03194068
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03194068