Quantitative modeling of visual attention processes in patients with Parkinson's disease: Effects of stimulus integrality on selective attention and dimensional integration.

Parkinson's disease (PD) patients and normal controls (NCs) were administered a series of visual attention tasks. The dimensional integration task required integration of information from 2 stimulus dimensions. The selective attention task required selective attention to 1 stimulus dimension while ignoring the other stimulus dimension. Both integral- and separable-dimension stimuli were examined. A series of quantitative models of attentional processing was applied to each participant's data. The results suggest that (a) PD patients were not impaired in integrating information from 2 stimulus dimensions, (b) PD patients were impaired in selective attention, (c) selective attention deficits in PD patients were not due to perceptual interference, and (d) PD patients were affected by manipulations of stimulus integrality and separability in much the same way as were NCs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Illusory recollection in older adults and younger adults under divided attention.

The authors investigated the effect of divided attention, study-list repetition, and age on recollection and familiarity. Older and younger adults under full attention and younger adults under divided attention at study viewed word lists highly associated with a single unstudied word (critical lure) once or three times, and subsequently performed a remember-know recognition test. Younger adults made fewer false remember responses to critical lures from repeated study lists, whereas younger adults under divided attention and older adults both showed an increase with repetition. Findings suggest older adults' susceptibility to illusory memories is related to a deficit in available attention during encoding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interference effects from divided attention during retrieval in younger and older adults.

The authors examined how retrieval, under divided attention (DA) conditions, is affected by the type of material in a concurrent task, and whether aging produces larger interference effects on memory. Young and old adults studied a list of unrelated words under full attention, and recalled them while performing either an animacy decision task to words or an odd-digit identification task to numbers. The animacy-distracting task interfered substantially with retrieval, and the size of the effect was not amplified in older compared with younger adults. DA using the odd-digit task did not produce as large an interference effect. These findings support the component-process model of memory, and pose problems for resource models of interference from DA at retrieval. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Preferences for emotional information in older and younger adults: A meta-analysis of memory and attention tasks.

The authors conducted a meta-analysis to determine the magnitude of older and younger adults' preferences for emotional stimuli in studies of attention and memory. Analyses involved 1,085 older adults from 37 independent samples and 3,150 younger adults from 86 independent samples. Both age groups exhibited small to medium emotion salience effects (i.e., preference for emotionally valenced stimuli over neutral stimuli) as well as positivity preferences (i.e., preference for positively valenced stimuli over neutral stimuli) and negativity preferences (i.e., preference for negatively valenced stimuli to neutral stimuli). There were few age differences overall. Type of measurement appeared to influence the magnitude of effects; recognition studies indicated significant age effects, where older adults showed smaller effects for emotion salience and negativity preferences than younger adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of visual attention in predicting driving impairment in older adults.

This study evaluated the role of visual attention (as measured by the DriverScan change detection task and the Useful Field of View Test [UFOV]) in the prediction of driving impairment in 155 adults between the ages of 63 and 87. In contrast to previous research, participants were not oversampled for visual impairment or history of automobile accidents. Although a history of automobile accidents within the past 3 years could not be predicted using any variable, driving performance in a low-fidelity simulator could be significantly predicted by performance in the change detection task and by the divided and selection attention subtests of the UFOV in structural equation models. The sensitivity and specificity of each measure in identifying at-risk drivers were also evaluated with receiver operating characteristic curves. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Written language comprehension in younger and older adults

This study examined the effects of text genre and repeated reading on written language comprehension in younger (M = 21 years) and older (M = 72 years) healthy adults (N = 54). Participants verified four text-based statements (i.e., explicit, implicit, contradictory, and elaborated) after reading expository, narrative, and procedural texts. Verification accuracy was comparable for both age groups; however, text genre, statement-type, and repeated reading produced significant effects. Expository passages, explicit and implicit statements, and repeated reading yielded superior results. Procedural passages and contradictory and elaborated statements yielded less accurate results. Statement-types invoked multiple levels of cognitive representation across text genres and age groups. Overall, reading time was significantly faster for younger adults, and reading times were significantly faster for both age groups during the repeated reading trial. Text genre also influenced reading time, with expository passages read faster than narrative and procedural passages. These findings suggest the appreciable influences of text genre and repeated reading on measures of text processing and comprehension in healthy adults, irrespective of age.     

State-dependent learning in older and younger adults.

In this study state-dependent learning in younger and older adults was compared. State was manipulated by having participants rest or exercise for 5 min, followed by exposure to 3 learning trials of a 20-item word list. After a 20-min delay, participants engaged either in the congruent or in the incongruent activity followed by free-recall trial, cued-recall, and recognition tests. Heart rate, blood pressure, and self-report of distress measures verified that the experimental conditions influenced the participants' physiologic state, but the distracter tasks did not. There was no difference in learning that was due to initial exercise condition, but both age groups showed greater recall when state was congruent before learning and delayed recall. This replicates previous research in which consistent state-dependent learning effects in younger adults were found and supports research suggesting that older adults spontaneously use contextual information to facilitate recall. The demonstration of state-dependent learning in older adults is discussed as an example of implicit memory not affected by aging. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

False recollection induced by photographs: a comparison of older and younger adults

Looking at photographs constitutes an important everyday memory activity for older adults. The authors found that reviewing photographs of events seen earlier in a videotape increases the likelihood that both older and younger adults remember specific details from the reviewed event (W. Koutstaal, D. L. Schacter, M. K. Johnson, K. E. Angell, & M. S. Gross, 1977). In the present study, the authors report 2 experiments demonstrating that photo review can also produce false recollection in elderly adults: After reviewing photos of events that had not been shown earlier in a videotape, older but not younger adults were later more likely to "remember" that those events had been shown in the videotape. False recollection induced by photo review appears to reflect an age-related deficit in source-monitoring abilities.     

Attitudes toward older and younger adults: A meta-analysis.

Attitudes toward the elderly have been examined in a number of empirical studies, yet the question of whether the elderly are viewed more negatively than younger persons has not been resolved. A meta-analysis of the literature was conducted to examine this question; results demonstrated that attitudes toward the elderly are more negative than attitudes toward younger people. However, smaller differences between the evaluations of elderly and younger targets were found when (a) the study used measures of personality traits (compared with measures of competence), (b) there were a larger number of dependent measures included in the effect size, (c) specific information was provided about the target person (compared with when a general target such as old person was used), and (d) a between-subjects design (compared with a within-subjects design) was used. These results support Lutsky's (1981) conclusion that age, in and of itself, seems to be less important in determining attitudes toward the elderly than other types of information. The methodological limitations within the literature and a need to consider multiple components of attitudes toward older individuals are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Implicit learning of a nonverbal sequence in younger and older adults.

Two experiments examined age-related differences in implicit serial learning using the M. J. Nissen and P. Bullemer (see record 1987-13436-001) task. Younger adults and 2 samples of older adults who differed in educational attainment, occupational status, and verbal ability were given a 10-trial repeating sequence embedded in 100-trial blocks. On each trial, participants pressed a key that matched a designated spatial location. Implicit learning was inferred from the difference in reaction time (RT) between a random sequence trial block and the immediately preceding block with the repeating sequence. Results indicated that negative transfer effects were comparable for the younger and higher ability older adults, but lower ability older adults showed less evidence of implicit learning. On an explicit task, younger and higher ability older adults were more accurate than the lower ability older adults. The implications of these findings for current views on implicit learning in adulthood are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Memory performance awareness in younger and older adults.

Reports on the course of memory-monitoring skills across adulthood are discrepant in conclusions and limited in scope. The purpose of this study was to build a large data base (3 samples and 7 different tasks) to assess performance awareness. Younger (19–41 years) and older (59–93 years) Ss estimated performance either before (i.e., predictions) or after (i.e., postdictions) completing each task. Predictions were less accurate than postdictions at both age levels, suggesting Ss monitored performance during the study–test cycle. Overall, the data suggested no consistent age effects in performance awareness: Age differences in monitoring occurred only in predictions and only for some tasks. Between-tasks differences in age effects could not be attributed to a single mediating mechanism like those suggested in previous reports. Why previous research has produced conflicting conclusions about metacognitive development in adulthood is discussed in light of these data. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Auditory temporal order perception in younger and older adults

This investigation examined the abilities of younger and older listeners to discriminate and identify temporal order of sounds presented in tonal sequences. It was hypothesized that older listeners would exhibit greater difficulty than younger listeners on both temporal processing tasks, particularly for complex stimulus patterns. It was also anticipated that tone order discrimination would be easier than tone order identification for all listeners. Listeners were younger and older adults with either normal hearing or mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing losses. Stimuli were temporally contiguous three-tone sequences within a 1/3 octave frequency range centered at 4000 Hz. For the discrimination task, listeners discerned differences between standard and comparison stimulus sequences that varied in tonal temporal order. For the identification task, listeners identified tone order of a single sequence using labels of relative pitch. Older listeners performed more poorly than younger listeners on the discrimination task for the more complex pitch patterns and on the identification task for faster stimulus presentation rates. The results also showed that order discrimination is easier than order identification for all listeners. The effects of hearing loss on the ordering tasks were minimal.     

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)     

Effects of goal-setting and feedback on memory performance and beliefs among older and younger adults.

This research examined the impact of goal-setting conditions on memory beliefs and performance among older and younger adults. After baseline recall and assessment of beliefs, participants were assigned to goal-setting, goals plus feedback, or control. Then, additional recall trials were followed by repeated memory beliefs assessments. For both younger and older adults, performance, motivation, and self-efficacy were affected positively by goal-setting. The impact of goals plus feedback was mixed and varied as a function of age and dependent measure. Success rates for reaching memory goals, which were low for the older adults, may have been a factor in these results. Adults' self-set recall goals were predicted initially by baseline performance and self-efficacy. On the final trial, goals were predicted by last trial performance, self-efficacy, and control beliefs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Auditory suppression and frequency selectivity in older and younger adults

Age differences in auditory suppression were examined by comparing auditory-filter shapes obtained with simultaneous and forward masking at 2 kHz in young and elderly normal-hearing listeners. To compensate for the decay of forward masking, growth of masking functions were used to transform thresholds obtained with a notched-noise masker to the level of a continuous noise band that would give the same threshold values. Although both age groups exhibited smaller equivalent rectangular bandwidths (ERBs) when the filters derived from transformed thresholds were obtained with forward masking, the change from simultaneous to nonsimultaneous masking was significantly greater for young adults. Measures of the low- (Pl) and high- (Pu) frequency sides of the filters for young listeners indicated that the slopes of both sides increased following a change from simultaneous to forward masking but that the high-frequency side exhibited significantly greater sharpening. Filter slopes (both upper and lower) for older adults, in contrast, did not differ between the two masking procedures. The findings from the study are discussed as reflecting possible age differences in auditory suppression. However, it is also noted that conclusions regarding differences between filter shapes derived with simultaneous and forward masking are limited to filter parameters determined with transformed (as described above) thresholds.     

Context affects feeling-of-knowing accuracy in younger and older adults.

In feeling of knowing (FOK) studies, participants predict subsequent recognition memory performance on items that were initially encoded but that cannot presently be recalled. Research suggests that FOK judgment magnitude may be influenced by the total amount, or quantity, of contextual information retrieved related to the unrecalled target (e.g., Koriat, 1993). The present study examined the contribution of quality of that information to episodic FOK judgments. In addition, we tested whether the episodic FOK deficit demonstrated by older adults could be reduced by encouraging retrieval of contextual information relevant to the target. Three experiments demonstrated that quality of the retrieved partial information influenced FOK judgments in both older and younger adults; however, the manifestation of that influence was age dependent. The results also indicated that older adults required explicit retrieval of contextual information before making FOK judgments in order to make accurate FOK predictions. The results suggest that FOK accuracy may be partially determined by search processes triggered when participants are queried for contextual information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adaptation to visuomotor rotations in younger and older adults.

Adaptation to a visuomotor rotation is known to be impaired at older adult age. The authors examined whether the impairment is present already at preretirement age and whether it depends on the difficulty of the adaptation task. Moreover, the authors tested predictions of the hypothesis that the age-related impairment pertains primarily to strategic corrections and the explicit knowledge on which they are based but not to the acquisition of an (implicit) internal model of the novel visuomotor transformation. The authors found an age-related impairment of adaptation and explicit knowledge already at preretirement age but no age-related change of aftereffects. With an incremental simplification of the adaptation task, age-related changes were able to be eliminated. Individual differences of the quality of explicit knowledge were associated with differences of adaptation, but not of aftereffects. When age groups were matched by explicit knowledge, age-related impairments of adaptation largely disappeared. However, a reliable difference remained in one of the experiments, suggesting that other processes of adjustment to a visuomotor rotation might be affected by aging as well. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Factors influencing word naming in younger and older adults.

The present study examined age differences in the influence of 3 factors that previous research has shown to influence word-naming performance. The influence of word frequency, orthographic length, and orthographic neighborhood measures was examined using large-scale regression analyses on the naming latencies for 2,820 words. Thirty-one younger adults and 29 older adults named all of these words, and age differences in the influence of these factors were examined. The results revealed that all 3 factors predicted reliable amounts of variance in word-naming latencies for both groups. However, older adults showed a larger influence of word frequency and reduced influences of orthographic length and orthographic neighborhood density compared with younger adults. Overall, these results suggest that lexical level factors increase in influence in older adults whereas sublexical factors decrease in influence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)