A rational approach to managing stage I nonseminomatous germ cell cancer

Four studies examined the effects of divided attention in younger and older adults. Attention was divided at encoding or retrieval in free recall (Experiment 1), cued recall (Experiments 2 and 3), and recognition (Experiment 4). Dividing attention at encoding disrupted memory performance equally for the two age groups; by contrast, for both age groups, dividing attention at retrieval had little or no effect on memory performance. Secondary task reaction times (RTs) were slowed to a greater extent for the older adults than for the younger adults, especially at retrieval. Age-related differences in RT costs at retrieval were largest in free recall, smaller in cued recall, and smallest in recognition. These results provide evidence for an age-related increase in the attentional demands of encoding and retrieval.     

The attentional demands of encoding and retrieval in younger and older adults: I. Evidence from divided attention costs.

Four studies examined the effects of divided attention in younger and older adults. Attention was divided at encoding or retrieval in free recall (Experiment 1), cued recall (Experiments 2 and 3), and recognition (Experiment 4). Dividing attention at encoding disrupted memory performance equally for the two age groups; by contrast, for both age groups, dividing attention at retrieval had little or no effect on memory performance. Secondary task reaction times (RTs) were slowed to a greater extent for the older adults than for the younger adults, especially at retrieval. Age-related differences in RTs costs at retrieval were largest in free recall, smaller in cued recall, and smallest in recognition. These results provide evidence for an age-related increase in the attentional demands of encoding and retrieval. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Speed of information processing as a mediator between age and free-recall performance.

A combined experimental and individual differences approach was used to investigate the mediating role of task-specific and task-independent speed of information processing measures in the relationship between age and free-recall performance. 36 younger adults (mean age 21 yrs) and 36 older adults (mean age 73 yrs) participated. Participants were required to encode 3 lists of words for immediate recall, by rehearsing the words aloud, once, twice, and 3 times. Participants' speed of information processing was assessed by 3 measures: rehearsal time, articulation speed, and scores on the Digit Symbol Substitution Test (DSST). Working memory was also assessed by a backward word-span measure. As predicted, younger adults recalled more words after rehearsing words 3 times rather than once, whereas older adults' recall did not increase with increasing numbers of rehearsals. Younger adults were faster on all speed-of-processing measures and had higher backward word span than did older adults. Task-independent speed of processing, measured by DSST scores and articulation speed, mediated the relationship between age and free recall. Scores on the DSST appear to reflect a fundamental difference between younger and older adults that influences recall performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age differences in recall and recognition.

An experiment is reported in which young and elderly adults performed cued-recall and recognition tests while carrying out a choice reaction-time task. An analysis of covariance, with recognition performance as the covariate, showed a reliable age decrement in recall. It was therefore concluded that older people perform more poorly on recall tasks than they do on recognition tasks. Performance on the secondary (reaction time) task showed that recall was associated with greater resource "costs" than was recognition and that this effect was amplified by increasing age. The results are in line with the suggestion that recall requires more processing resources than does recognition and that such resources are depleted as people grow older. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adult age differences in temporal and item memory.

Three experiments tested whether the relationship between age differences in temporal and item memory depends on the degree to which the item memory measure relies on memory for context. The authors predicted a stronger relationship of temporal memory to free recall than to recognition memory. Results showed that age differences in temporal memory could be eliminated after controlling for free recall but not recognition memory performance. Under some conditions recognition memory accounted for a significant portion of age-related variance in temporal memory. These results challenge past research that has interpreted age differences in temporal and item memory as independent and suggest that a generalized decline in context memory may underlie reduced performance in older adults on all types of memory tests. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age and individual differences influence prospective memory.

The influence of age and individual ability differences on event-based prospective memory was examined using an adapted version of G. 0. Einstein and M. A. McDaniel's (1990) task. Two samples of younger and older adults who differed in educational attainment, occupational status, and verbal ability were compared. Results yield comparable prospective performance for the younger groups and higher ability older adults; lower ability older adults performed more poorly by comparison. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that working memory span and recognition accounted for small but significant proportions of variance in prospective performance. The contribution of ability level to prospective memory remained significant even after statistically controlling for self-reported health and social activity characteristics. Implications for current views on prospective memory aging are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of processing resources in age-related prospective and retrospective memory within old age.

This study investigated the role of processing speed and working memory in prospective and retrospective memory (i.e., free recall) performance within old age. The aim was to examine age-related differences in both memory domains within the age range of 65 to 80 years. The sample consisted of 361 older adults from Wave 1 data of the Zurich Longitudinal Study on Cognitive Aging. Using structural equation modeling, prospective memory, free recall, working memory, and processing speed were identified as latent constructs. Age effects were found to be larger for prospective memory than for free recall. Furthermore, when controlling for individual differences in working memory and processing speed, unique age effects remained for prospective, but not retrospective, memory performance. Results indicate that, within old age, prospective memory represents a distinct memory construct that is partially independent of age-related individual differences in speed of processing, working memory, and retrospective memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Orienting tasks as moderators of narrative and expository text recall in adulthood.

Incidental narrative and expository prose memory of 60 older adults (mean age 71.6 yrs) and 60 younger adults (mean age 23.6 yrs) was assessed following orienting tasks that emphasized either relational (sentence scrambling) or individual proposition (letter deletion) information or following a control condition. Orienting tasks were done capably, but older adults took longer and made more errors on the letter-deletion task than did younger adults. Age differences in recall were observed consistently for expository texts, but for narrative texts, age differences in recall were observed only when letters were deleted. If orienting tasks overtax older adults' processing resources or emphasize shallow information, recall gains may be minimal. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aging and emotional memory: The forgettable nature of negative images for older adults.

Two studies examined age differences in recall and recognition memory for positive, negative, and neutral stimuli. In Study 1, younger, middle-aged, and older adults were shown images on a computer screen and, after a distraction task, were asked first to recall as many as they could and then to identify previously shown images from a set of old and new ones. The relative number of negative images compared with positive and neutral images recalled decreased with each successively older age group. Recognition memory showed a similar decrease with age in the relative memory advantage for negative pictures. In Study 2, the largest age differences in recall and recognition accuracy were also for the negative images. Findings are consistent with socioemotional selectivity theory, which posits greater investment in emotion regulation with age. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aging and prose memory: Tests of the resource-deficit hypothesis.

Two experiments tested predictions that age differences in processing resources underlie age differences in prose recall. Topic familiarity, text length, and speed of text presentation were manipulated and reduced the amount recalled in a manner consistent with the hypothesis that these variables would tax processing resources. The amount of information recalled was systematically lower in older adults, but age differences were not increased by the experimental manipulations as expected. However, measures of the putative processing resources did account for some of the age-related variance in prose recall, and relative memorability functions suggested that the experimental manipulations interfered with the quality of recall in older adults more than in younger adults. The outcome did not support the resource-deficit hypothesis as originally proposed and may best be understood in terms of factors other than age-related deficits in the measured amounts of processing resources. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Impact of sensory acuity on auditory working memory span in young and older adults.

The impact of sensory acuity, processing speed, and working memory capacity on auditory working memory span (L-span) performance at 5 presentation levels was examined in 80 young adults (18–30 years of age) and 26 older adults (60–82 years of age). Lowering the presentation level of the L-span task had a greater detrimental effect on the older adults than on the younger ones. Furthermore, the relationship between sensory acuity and L-span performance varied as a function of age and presentation level. These results suggest that declining acuity plays an important explanatory role in age-related declines in cognitive abilities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Is the dissociability of working memory systems for name identity, visual-object identity, and spatial location maintained in old age?

The dissociability of working memory for name identity (verbal information), visual objects, and spatial location was explored in 3 experiments. Consistent with previous results, the 3 working memory systems were dissociable in younger adults. Both younger and older adults showed involvement of name identity in an object identity task, and older adults showed this involvement in a spatial memory task. Results were interpreted as showing that the systems are generally separable but that involvement of 1 with another is possible and more likely in older adults. A 4th, correlational study showed that there is generalized decline in working memory systems in old age, with the age differences in memory mediated to a moderate extent by age-related differences in speed of processing. It was speculated that the specific, possibly strategic changes are independent of and take place against a backdrop of generalized loss of nervous system integrity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of contextual organization on spatial memory of middle-aged and older women.

Examined the memory performance of 20 women aged 31–59 yrs and 20 aged 65–85. Ss reconstructed spatial arrays, replacing miniature objects in either a contextually organized panorama or a noncontextually organized bank of cubicles. Performance of the middle-aged Ss did not differ between the 2 tasks. Older Ss performed as well as middle-aged Ss in the panorama task, but in the cubicles task their scores were lower than in the panorama task and lower than those of the younger Ss in the cubicles task. Results support the conclusion that in a task that allows the use of existing contextual organization as a memory aid, age differences in memory performance disappear. Age differences may be limited to tasks that remove previously learned relationships between items (as in recall of lists of unrelated words), requiring Ss to invent an organizational structure to facilitate recall. Though such tasks predominate in research, they probably do not represent the memory problems met in everyday life, especially by older adults. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of environmental support on implicit and explicit memory in younger and older adults.

Addressed (1) whether there are age differences on an implicit word-stem-completion task and (2) whether age differences on both implicit and explicit memory would decrease with increased environmental support. A total of 287 Ss were presented with words in an incidental learning task with structural or semantic processing. Following 2 filler tasks, Ss received an implicit or an explicit word-stem-completion task. The number of letters in the stem varied from 2 to 4. Results yielded an Age?×?Memory Task dissociation such that there were large age differences on the explicit task and no age difference on the implicit task, regardless of whether Ss aware of the memory test were included or excluded. There was no evidence that environmental support improved older adults' performance more than that of younger adults on either memory task. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sixteen-year longitudinal and time lag changes in memory and cognition in older adults.

The authors describe assessment of 16-year changes in memory and intellectual abilities in a sample of 106 adults ages 30–36 and 55–81 at baseline. Results suggest that there are reliable 16-year declines in list and text recall but not in recognition after age 55. Comparisons of predictions of change from the cross-sectional baseline sample indicated that longitudinal changes were either similar to or greater than predicted for those participants over the age of 60. Despite age differences in initial scores, a comparison of 2 cohorts in a time lag analysis showed that they did not differ in performance when they were in their 70s. These results suggest that age changes in list and text recall in older adults are due to age-related declines rather than to cohort differences and that age declines in recognition are not reliable. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An opposition procedure for detecting age-related deficits in recollection: Telling effects of repetition.

In 2 experiments, the advantages of placing automatic and consciously controlled memory processes in opposition to study age-related declines in memory performance were examined. Drawing on the common memory failure of mistakenly repeating oneself, a task was designed in which participants had to rely on conscious memory (recollection) to avoid repetition errors. Recollection proved to be severely affected by aging; older adults showed significantly more repetition errors than did younger adults, even at very short retention intervals. These results contrast sharply with the small age differences found with a standard recognition test. Moreover, L. L. Jacoby's (1991) process-dissociation procedure (Experiment 2) showed that automatic memory processes were unaffected with age and could support recognition performance in older adults. The advantages of the opposition procedure for studying memory in older adults relative to other measures are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

No age differences in complex memory search: Older adults search as efficiently as younger adults.

In 2 experiments, the authors investigated age differences in memory search under 4 conditions: forward search, backward search, random search, and fixed irregular search. Both search slopes and serial position curves were investigated. Mixing conditions led to smaller age differences than blocking conditions, suggesting that younger adults have an advantage over older adults when strategies can be applied to memory scanning. All age differences in scanning rates, however, disappeared when age differences in a magnitude-judgment control task were controlled for, showing that age differences in memory scanning tasks are not because of the scanning process per se, but because of attention, sensorimotor speed, and decision processes. In both experiments, the serial position curves of older adults echoed those of younger adults closely, demonstrating that younger and older adults use the same scanning processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Handwriting performance in younger and older adults: Age, familiarity, and practice effects.

The main goals of 2 experiments on the aging of handwriting skills were to investigate (1) age differences in speed of handwriting performance, (2) effects of task familiarity on age differences in performance, and (3) effects of practice on age differences in performance. Younger adults performed reliably faster than older adults on all tasks. An Age?×?Familiarity interaction in both experiments indicated that age differences were magnified for unfamiliar but attenuated for familiar tasks. In the 2nd experiment, an Age?×?Trial interaction revealed that older adults improved at a faster rate than younger adults. Regressions with initial trial data indicated that the older were slower than the younger adults by a factor of about 1.6. With practice, however, this slowing factor was only 1.02. Results suggest that familiarity and practice play a role in speed of handwriting. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)