The sense of smell is often taken for granted, that is until it deteriorates. As we get older, our olfactory function declines. Not only do we lose our sense of smell, we lose our ability to discriminate between smells.

According to the article, as people get older, they report increases in positive traits such as conscientiousness, agreeableness and emotional stability. Overall, as we age we become “more responsible, more agreeable and more emotionally stable,” according to the Journal.

As you age, the way your senses (hearing, vision, taste, smell, touch) give you information about the world changes. Your senses become less sharp, and this can make it harder for you to notice details. Sensory information is converted into nerve signals that are carried to the brain. …

Divided attention has usually been associated with significant age-related declines in performance, particularly when tasks are complex. Divided attention tasks require the processing of two or more sources of information or the performance of two or more tasks at the same time.

Although age-related declines in unimodal selective attention were reported, research in intermodal selective attention tends to indicate older adults retain their abilities to ignore distraction in a different modality.

Conclusions: This study demonstrates an age-related reduction in attentive efficiency but, notably, this decline does not involve all components of attention. Subjects over 60 years of age show progressive slowing in processing of complex tasks and a reduced capacity to inhibit irrelevant stimuli.

Definition. Cognitive ageing is the decline in cognitive processing that occurs as people get older. Age-related impairments in reasoning, memory and processing speed can arise during adulthood and progress into the elder years.

Sustained attention is a process that enables the maintenance of response persistence and continuous effort over extended periods of time. Performing attention-related tasks in real life involves the need to ignore a variety of distractions and inhibit attention shifts to irrelevant activities.

Fatigue, hunger, noise, and emotional stress reduce the time focused on the task. Common estimates for sustained attention to a freely chosen task range from about 5 minutes for a two-year-old child, to a maximum of around 20 minutes in older children and adults.

The vigilance decrement is defined as the decreased probability of detecting critical trials in such tasks as time on task increases (e.g., Mackworth, 1948; Davies and Parasuraman, 1982; Warm et al., 2008).

One method in developing vigilance is through awareness of one’s own “steps” that are taken within daily life. What this calls for is observation and attention to those times when either action or inaction is required. And in such situations, to always act towards the positive.

Attention and vigilance are not constant and may be impacted by environmental factors such as noise and temperature. Physiological factors such as sleep loss, high blood pressure, etc. Task factors such as frequency of signals can affect performance on attention and vigilance tasks.

An increased rate of target stimuli in stressful multitasking operations can lead to excessive cognitive workload and reduced cognitive ability. Similarly, monotonous stimuli can also lead to vigilance decrement and drop in cognitive efficiency.

Sustained attention refers to the ability to consciously or semiconsciously focus on tasks over extended periods of time whereas vigilance may be defined more narrowly as a person’s preparedness to detect infrequent and unpredictably occurring events or signals over prolonged periods of time.

Attention is the behavioral and cognitive process of selectively concentrating on a discrete stimulus while ignoring other perceivable stimuli. Attention comes into play in many psychological topics, including memory (stimuli that are more attended to are better remembered), vision, and cognitive load.

SYNONYMS FOR vigilance 1 alertness, attention, heedfulness, concern, care.

vigilant

• alert,
• Argus-eyed,
• attentive,
• awake,
• observant,
• open-eyed,
• tenty.
• (also tentie)

Use vigilant to describe someone who keeps awake and alert in order to avoid danger or problems. When taking the subway, be vigilant about your wallet — always know where it is, or someone might steal it from you.

other words for vigilance

• alertness.
• caution.
• diligence.
• surveillance.
• attention.
• attentiveness.
• lookout.
• observance.

the state or quality of being wary (= not completely trusting or certain): They eyed each other with wariness and suspicion.

prudent • /PROO-dunt/ • adjective. 1 : marked by wisdom or judiciousness 2 : shrewd in the management of practical affairs 3 : cautious, discreet 4 : thrifty, frugal.

: characterized by steady, earnest, and energetic effort : painstaking a diligent worker.

Diligence is, essentially, applied strengths, or “strengths in action.” Working in one’s area of strengths provides a natural motivation to care about one’s work and the perseverance to carry it through to completion.

proactive Add to list Share. The adjective proactive can describe a person who gets things done. If you are proactive, you make things happen, instead of waiting for them to happen to you. Active means “doing something.” The prefix pro- means “before.” So if you are proactive, you are ready before something happens.

As a diligent learner, you are active in the learning process, take responsibility for your own learning, and do many good things of your own free will (DC 58:27). You do not passively wait for others to teach you, but are anxiously engaged in understanding truth.