ATTENTION AND PLANNING IN OLDER ADULTS

In a study with 48 adults between 65 and 97 years of age, we examined the influence of working memory, inhibitory efficiency, and attentiona l flexibility on the ability to solve efficiently a complex planning t ask: 26 of the subjects were living independently in their own home, a nd 22 subjects were recruited from nursing homes. Subjects first parti cipated in a number of cognitive ability tests. They then had to plan a trip for a group of 20 people. The results indicate that inhibitory efficiency combined with the flexible use of attentional resources can account for substantial amounts of variance in the planning task. The results support the view that chronological age does not necessarily predict the performance in rather complex cognitive tasks like plannin g. The data also point at the possibility that deficits in one informa tion-processing component can be compensated by other information-proc essing components that improve or remain stable in older adults. In or der to predict adjustment to everyday contexts it might be necessary t o consider individual, differentiated patterns of performance in a var iety of basic information-processing components.