Research Focus
A major focus of my research is on cognitive inhibition – the ability to prevent irrelevant information from entering consciousness, and the ability to delete it from consciousness if it does get in. We have found that older adults allow more irrelevant information to enter consciousness, and they attend to that information more and for longer compared to younger adults. The good news is that if this irrelevant information later becomes relevant and beneficial for performance, older adults are at an advantage over young adults. We have also examined how cognitive inhibition varies throughout the day. We have shown that older adults, who tend to be early birds, are far better at ignoring irrelevant information at their optimal time of day (usually in the morning) than at their non-optimal time of day (usually in the afternoon). We have also observed associated brain differences throughout the day that enable better cognitive performance in the morning. This affects older adults’ ability to perform well on tasks that are vulnerable to distraction, including attention and memory, depending on the time of day.
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