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Age-related decline in information processing can have a substantial impact on activities such as driving. However, the assessment of these changes is often carried out using cognitive tasks that do not adequately represent the dynamic process of updating environmental stimuli. Equally, traditional tests are often static in their approach to task complexity, and do not assess difficulty within the bounds of an individual’s capability. To address these limitations, we used a more ecologically valid measure, the Swansea Test of Attentional Control (STAC), in which a threshold for information processing speed is established at a given level of accuracy. We aimed to delineate how older, compared to younger, adults varied in their performance of the task, while also assessing relationships between the task outcome and gender, general cognition (MoCA), perceived memory function (MFQ), cognitive reserve (NART), and aspects of mood (PHQ-9, GAD-7). The results indicate that older adults were significantly slower than younger adults but no less precise, irrespective of gender. Age was negatively correlated with the speed of task performance. Our measure of general cognition was positively correlated with the task speed threshold but not with age per se. Perceived memory function, cognitive reserve, and mood were not related to task performance. The findings indicate that while attentional control is less efficient in older adulthood, age alone is not a defining factor in relation to accuracy. In a real-life context, general cognitive function, in conjunction with dynamic measures such as STAC, may represent a far more effective strategy for assessing the complex executive functions underlying driving ability.

In this study we examined attention-related reaction time (RT) and intra-individual variability (IIV) in younger and older adults using an iPad-based visual search test, in which, for each trial, participants were required to sequentially press a series of on-screen stimuli numbered from 1 to 8. Although overall performance RT was significantly slower, with greater IIV for the older compared to the younger adult group, there was also a disproportionately slowed RT and greater IIV for the first item in the series compared to all other responses within the trial. When the response to the first stimulus was removed from statistical analysis, the significant age-related RT slowing effect remained, but IIV was no longer significantly greater for the older compared to the younger adults. This pattern of results reveals a dichotomy between the preservation of RT and IIV in aging, and one that is strongly related to research methodology. A finding that may account, at least in part, for the outcome heterogeneity in the study of IIV in aging.