Imagining What Comes Next: Attention, Cognitive Control, and Visual Imagery in Aging

It is well-established that healthy older adults perform more poorly than younger adults in a range of tasks that require attention and cognitive control. At the same time, it is equally well-established that healthy older adults perform just as well as younger adults on tasks that tap well-learned (automatic) processes rather attention and cognitive control. To our knowledge this issue has not yet been investigated in a task that requires attention and cognitive control to generate visual imagery. In the present study, we address this gap in the literature by comparing healthy older adults and younger adults in a visual imagery task that measures both: (a) attention and cognitive control that we predict should differ between young and older adults; and (b) well-learned (automatic) processes that should not differ between young and older adults.