Examining age-related changes in global and local attentional control

Widespread cognitive decline in older adults has been hypothesized to stem from a fundamental deficit in inhibition, or the ability to ignore goal-irrelevant information. However, previous efforts to measure inhibition in aging have been hindered by the task impurity problem, where multiple cognitive processes contribute to performance and make it difficult to isolate specific mechanisms. Here, we introduce the Global-Local AtteNtional Control Evaluation (GLANCE), a novel framework designed to 1) assess both global attentional control (between-trial inhibition) and local attentional control (within-trial inhibition) in a unified task; and 2) address the task impurity problem via an accompanying computational model. Behavioral results from younger, middle-aged, and older adults (N=100; age range: 18-73) reveal significant age-related differences in global attentional control, with older adults showing less efficient adaptation to rule changes compared to younger adults. Parameter estimates from fitting the computational model to subject-level data further identified reduced error-related memory suppression as the specific mechanism that accounts for age-related differences in behavior.