Human attention is subject to fluctuations. Mind-wandering (MW) – attending to thoughts unrelated to the current task demands – is considered a ubiquitous experience. According to the Control Failure x Concerns view (McVay & Kane, 2010), MW is curbed by executive control, and task-irrelevant thoughts enter consciousness due to attentional control lapses. The generation of off-task thoughts is assumed to increase with higher number of personal concerns. Challenging this view, older adults report less MW than younger adults. Here, we addressed the hypothesis that older adults report less MW due to a lower ability to notice attention lapses and to appraise their current on-task focus. In an age-comparative study (N = 40 younger and N = 44 older adults) using a battery of three tasks spanning working memory, reading comprehension, and sustained attention, we assessed the correlation between the degree of self-reported on-task focus and task performance on a trial-by-trial basis. Younger and older adults' degree of on-task attention measured through thought probes was correlated equally strongly with performance across trials in all tasks, indicating preserved ability to monitor attentional fluctuations in healthy aging. Self-reported current concerns' number and importance did not differ across age, and they did not predict self-reported attention across tasks. Our study shows that lower rates of MW in aging do not reflect lower validity of older adults' attentional appraisal or lower levels of current concerns.

人的注意力可能会波动。徘徊（MW）–专注于与当前任务需求无关的想法–被认为是普遍存在的经验。根据“控制失败x关注点”视图（McVay和Kane，2010年），MW被执行控制所抑制，与任务无关的思想由于注意力控制的失误而进入意识。人们认为，随着个人担忧的增多，任务外想法的产生也会增加。挑战这一观点的是，老年人报告的MW小于年轻人。在这里，我们解决了一个假设，即老年人报告较少的MW，这是因为其注意注意力下降和评估其当前的任务重点的能力较低。在一项年龄比较研究中（N  =年轻40岁，N = 44位老年人）使用了涵盖工作记忆，阅读理解和持续关注三个任务的电池组，我们在逐项试验的基础上评估了自我报告的任务集中程度与任务绩效之间的相关性。通过思想探针测得的年轻人和成年人在任务上的注意力程度与所有任务中所有试验的表现均具有很强的相关性，表明在健康衰老中监测注意力波动的能力得以保持。自我报告的当前关注点的数量和重要性在各个年龄段都没有差异，并且它们也无法预测任务间自我报告的关注点。我们的研究表明，衰老中较低的MW率不能反映出老年人注意力评估的有效性较低或当前关注的水平较低。