ABSTRACT
Many contemporary theories of cognitive aging include notions of qualitative differences in cognitive processing between age groups and/or age-related reductions in information processing resources. The inclusion of these concepts reflects the influence that Gus Craik’s work in levels of processing (Craik & Lockhart, 1972; Craik & Simon, 1980; Craik & Tulving, 1975) and cognitive resources (e.g., Craik & Byrd, 1982; Craik, Govoni, Naveh-Benjamin, & Anderson, 1996) has had and continues to have in the development of cognitive aging theories (for reviews, see Craik & Anderson, 1999; Zacks, Hasher, & Li, 2000; McDowd & Shaw, 2000). As will become clear in the present chapter, each of these ideas has also had an influence on my thinking about aging, selective attention, and inhibitory function.
