The Role of Inhibition in Reading for Young and Older Adults

Abstract

The primary objective of the current research was to examine the impact of aging effects on inhibitory processes. Connelly et al. (1991) found that older adults were more disrupted by distraction in a reading with distraction task. Carlson et al. (1995) replicated and extended Connelly et al.'s findings by showing that older adults were able to use knowledge about distractor location to improve total reading time. In the present study four tasks were used in order to investigate the role of aging on inhibition. In the reading with distraction task participants read aloud paragraphs that either did not contain distractors, contained distractors in predictable locations, or distractors in unpredictable locations. The results indicated that although older adults were more disrupted by distraction compared to younger adults, they were not differentially affected by distractor predictability. The results also indicated that only one inhibitory measure was able to predict eye-tracking measures, restraint.