Timing in aging: the role of attention

This paper questions the issue of attentional capacity in changes in time processing with aging. Performances of young and old subjects were compared in a task involving an attentional sharing between three concurrent estimations of durations (6, 8, or 10 s). Depending upon the experimental condition, the subjects were instructed to simultaneously focus their attention onto one, two, or three target stimuli. The results showed that increased difficulty of the task, that is the increased number of concurrent temporal targets to monitor at a time, led to a greater disruption of timing performance in elderly people than in young adults. Temporal judgments of elderly were less accurate and more variable than those of young adults in the attentional sharing conditions (two or three target durations). The greater sensitivity to interference effects observed in the elderly is discussed in terms of age-related reduction of attentional resources and working-memory deficits.