A Aging and Attention

In everyday life, people often refer to attention as if it were a single, unitary thing, such as a vat of energy that can be spread across stimuli or tasks. Research suggests otherwise (Nobre and Kastner 2014). There appear to be many different limited mental resources associated with different brain networks and pertaining to different levels of processing (e.g., spatial vs. central) that can be utilized in multiple ways (e.g., activation, inhibition, control). For example, one can apply extra mental effort to an important task, as in the oft-heard command “pay attention,” as opposed to performing it automatically. Attention can also refer to selective processing of one thing over another (selective attention), which could be a spatial location, object, feature, thought, or entire task. Attention can also be spread among tasks (divided attention), often degrading performance on one or all of them. Relatedly, one can shift attention from one task to another. What all of these varieties have in common is control over how limited mental resources are utilized in the service of thought and action.