Running head: AGING AND DYNAMIC ATTENTION REGULATION DURING LISTENING

29 Listening in everyday life requires attention to be deployed dynamically – when listening is expected to 30 be difficult and when relevant information is expected to occur – to conserve mental resources. 31 Conserving mental resources may be particularly important for older adults who often experience 32 difficulties understanding speech. We use electroand magnetoencephalography to investigate the 33 neural and behavioral mechanics of dynamic attention regulation during listening and the effects that 34 aging may have on these. We show that neural alpha oscillatory activity indicates when in time attention 35 is deployed (Experiment 1) and that deployment depends on listening difficulty (Experiment 2). Older 36 adults also show successful attention regulation, although younger adults appear to utilize timing 37 information a bit differently compared to older adults. We further show that the recruited brain regions 38 differ between age groups. Superior parietal cortex is involved in attention regulation in younger adults, 39 whereas posterior temporal cortex is more involved in older adults (Experiment 3). This difference in the 40 sources of alpha activity across age groups was only observed when a task was performed, and not for 41 alpha activity during resting-state recordings (Experiment S1). In sum, our study suggests that older 42 adults employ different neural control strategies compared to younger adults to regulate attention in 43 time under listening challenges. 44