Older yet Sharp: No General Age-Related Decline in Focusing Attention

Attention is a multifaceted mechanism operating on space, features, and memory. Previous studies reported both decline and preservation of attention in aging. Yet, it is unclear if healthy aging differentially affects attentional selection in these domains. To address these inconsistencies, we evaluated the ability to focus attention using a battery of 11 tasks in a large sample of younger and older adults (n = 172/174). We addressed whether (a) individual differences and aging effects are consistent across different attention tasks and (b) there is a domain-specific or domain-general age-related decline in focused attention. Both younger and older adults benefited from focusing attention on space, features, and memory representations. Confirmatory factor analysis showed substantial commonalities in baseline performance across all tasks, indicating shared variance in decision-making and memory processes. Focused-attention effects, however, formed separate factors reflecting spatial-, feature-, and memory-based attentional efficiency. Correlations between these factors were generally low and inconsistent for both age groups. This supports the view that focused attention is not a single ability. Within the same domain, some tasks showed a decline, whereas others showed improvement with aging, and, on average, attentional benefits were similar across age groups. Accordingly, our results are inconsistent with the claim that aging is associated with either domain-specific or domain-general decline in focused attention. Public Significance Statement Longevity has boomed, confronting society with the need to foster the quality of life of the growing aging population. Being able to independently perform daily tasks is essential for well-being, and this depends critically on the fitness of our attentional abilities. Well-tuned perceptual attention abilities are needed to efficiently navigate our crowded sensory environment, and we also need an attention mechanism to select among thoughts, memories, and actions. Studies have pointed either to decline or preservation of attention in aging, creating an inconsistent picture. Our study provides a comprehensive assessment of the ability to focus attention on spatial locations, features, and memory representations in a large sample of younger and older adults. We found no evidence that attentional functions decline as people age: Younger and older adults could efficiently focus attention on all domains assessed, thereby i