Earlier research has attributed the performance decrements of older adults on many tasks to cautiousness. The purpose of the present investigation was to assess differences in performance between "cautious" and "risky" older adults. Male and female older adults, aged 65-80, were classified as either cautious (N=9) or risky (N=9) on the basis of a personality test. Participants also completed an attention task consistng of 12 separate dichotic messages (trials) composed of numbers and letters. Errors of omission and intrusion were recorded and summed across trials to obtain a maximum error score. Data analyses indicated that cautious older adults made significantly more errors than risky older adults. The significant difference in total errors may have been due to the additive effects of cautious older adults' omission and intrusion errors. (Author/AG)