title: Susceptibility to distraction during reading in young, young-old, and old-old adults.
abstract: BACKGROUND/STUDY CONTEXT: Susceptibility to distraction during reading may increase with age, resulting in comprehension errors. Neurological integrity and cognitive reserve are possible covariates of age-related distraction susceptibility. The current study investigated distraction susceptibility in three age groups (young, young-old, and old-old), and examined the covariation patterns of variable sets associated with neurological integrity and cognitive reserve.
  
  
  METHODS
  Participants responded to comprehension questions after reading stories that included semantically related or semantically unrelated distractors. Neurological integrity measures consisted of Mini-Mental State Examination, Selective Reminding, and Category Fluency. Cognitive reserve measures consisted of education and vocabulary.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Old-old adults were more likely than young and young-old adults to select distractors when responding to comprehension questions (24.02%, 11.95%, 3.68%, respectively). Age-related distraction variance significantly overlapped neurological variance, and became more transparent after cognitive reserve variance was controlled.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study augments previous age-related distraction research by highlighting (a) the increase in distraction susceptibility in adults over 79, particularly when distractors are semantically related; (b) the influence of age-related neurological integrity on distraction; and (c) the possibility that education and verbal experience may decrease distraction susceptibility, consistent with cognitive reserve frameworks.
authors: Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan 48309, USA. mcginnis@oakland.edu
authors: Debra
authors: D
authors: McGinnis
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D001288:Attention; D058245:Cognitive Reserve; D032882:Comprehension; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011932:Reading; D014825:Vocabulary; D055815:Young Adult