How Distracting Events Influence Young and Older adults' Arithmetic Performance?

Abstract

In this study, I investigated the role of distraction on arithmetic performance and whether this role changes with aging during adulthood. Young and older adults were asked to verify one-digit addition problems (Expt. 1) or to estimate the results of two-digit multiplication problems (Expt. 2). In both experiments, true and false simple problems (Expt. 1) or easier and harder complex problems (Expt. 2) were displayed superimposed or not on irrelevant, emotionally neutral pictures (e.g. mushrooms). In both simple and complex arithmetic, young and older adults obtained poorer arithmetic performance under distraction relative to no-distraction conditions. Most interesting, deleterious effects of irrelevant stimuli on arithmetic performance were larger in older than in young adults. Moreover, magnitude of distraction effects increased with longer solution latencies in young (but not in older) adults while solving complex arithmetic problems. These findings have important implications for furthering our understanding of the role of distraction on cognitive performance in general, and arithmetic performance in particular, as well as age-related differences in this role.