The effect of age and individual differences in attentional control: a sample case using the Hayling test

Individual differences in working memory (WM) have been shown to reflect the ability to control attention in order to prevent interference. This study examines the role of WM capacity in resisting interference in the Hayling task, in samples of younger and older adults. In each age group, high and low WM span individuals had to complete high-cloze sentences with either expected words (initiation) or words providing no meaning to the sentences (interference). Results showed increased response times and decreased correct responses in interference, as compared to initiation. As interference increased, older adults demonstrated lower accuracy than younger ones. Further, low spans demonstrated higher interference costs than high spans on accuracy, while the reverse pattern was found for response times. Our findings suggest that both age and individual differences in WM capacity need to be considered to account for differences in the ability to resist to interference.