The development of attentional networks: cross-sectional findings from a life span sample.

Using a population-based sample of 263 individuals ranging from 6 to 89 years of age, we investigated the gains and losses in the abilities to (a) use exogenous cues to shift attention covertly and (b) ignore conflicting information across the life span. The participants' ability to shift visual attention was tested by a typical Posner-type orienting task with valid and invalid peripheral cues. To tap conflict resolution, we asked participants to perform a color version of the Eriksen-type flanker task. The observed cross-sectional age differences in our data indicate that the ability to deal with conflicting information and the ability to covertly orient attention show different cross-sectional age gradients during childhood and that only conflict resolution mechanisms show a marked negative age difference in old age. Moreover, the data suggest that although the overall performance of the participants can, in part, be accounted for by individual differences in information processing speed, performance in the orienting and conflict task depends on factors related to the specific development of the two attentional systems in question.