Certainly true of me....
The researchers found that the older adults were 10% more likely to focus on the distracting information than the younger adults, who largely blocked out this information successfully.
Additionally, the data gleaned from the fMRI scans showed that the older adults showed significantly less activity in the attentional control areas of the brain in the afternoon, compared with the younger adults.
The older adults who were tested in the afternoon showed signs of "idling," the researchers say, which means they were showing activations in the default mode - a set of regions that are activated when a person is resting or thinking about nothing in general.
This could indicate that the adults were having a hard time focusing, because when a person is fully aiming their attention at something, resting state activations are suppressed.
But there is a silver lining for older adults. The team found that when another group of 18 older adults was tested in the morning between 8:30 and 10:30 am, they performed significantly better.