The structure of working memory abilities across the adult life span.

The present study addresses three questions regarding age differences in working memory: (1) whether performance on complex span tasks decreases as a function of age at a faster rate than performance on simple span tasks; (2) whether spatial working memory decreases at a faster rate than verbal working memory; and (3) whether the structure of working memory abilities is different for different age groups. Adults, ages 20–89 (n = 388), performed three simple and three complex verbal span tasks and three simple and three complex spatial memory tasks. Performance on the spatial tasks decreased at faster rates as a function of age than performance on the verbal tasks, but within each domain, performance on complex and simple span tasks decreased at the same rates. Confirmatory factor analyses revealed that domain-differentiated models yielded better fits than models involving domain-general constructs, providing further evidence of the need to distinguish verbal and spatial working memory abilities. Regardless of which domain-differentiated model was examined, and despite the faster rates of decrease in the spatial domain, age group comparisons revealed that the factor structure of working memory abilities was highly similar in younger and older adults and showed no evidence of age-related dedifferentiation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Models of visuospatial and verbal memory across the adult life span.

The authors investigated the distinctiveness and interrelationships among visuospatial and verbal memory processes in short-term, working, and long-term memories in 345 adults. Beginning in the 20s, a continuous, regular decline occurs for processing-intensive tasks (e.g., speed of processing, working memory, and long-term memory), whereas verbal knowledge increases across the life span. There is little differentiation in the cognitive architecture of memory across the life span. Visuospatial and verbal working memory are distinct but highly interrelated systems with domain-specific short-term memory subsystems. In contrast to recent neuroimaging data, there is little evidence for dedifferentiation of function at the behavioral level in old compared with young adults. The authors conclude that efforts to connect behavioral and brain data yield a more complete understanding of the aging mind. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Global self-esteem across the life span.

This study provides a comprehensive picture of age differences in self-esteem from age 9 to 90 years using cross-sectional data collected from 326,641 individuals over the Internet. Self-esteem levels were high in childhood, dropped during adolescence, rose gradually throughout adulthood, and declined sharply in old age. This trajectory generally held across gender, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and nationality (U.S. citizens vs. non-U.S. citizens). Overall, these findings support previous research, help clarify inconsistencies in the literature, and document new trends that require further investigation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stability of self-esteem across the life span.

Two studies examined the rank-order stability of self-esteem from age 6 to 83: Study 1 was a meta-analysis of 50 published articles (N = 29,839) and Study 2 analyzed data from 4 large national studies (N = 74,381). Self-esteem showed substantial continuity over time (disattenuated correlations ranged from the .50s to .70s), comparable to the stability found for personality traits. Both studies provided evidence for a robust developmental trend: Self-esteem stability was low during childhood, increased throughout adolescence and young adulthood, and declined during midlife and old age. This trend could not be explained by age differences in the reliability of self-esteem measures, and generally replicated across gender, ethnicity, self-esteem scale, nationality (U.S. vs. non-U.S.), and year of publication. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Extending the study of autobiographical memory: Thinking back about life across the life span.

By combining a life perspective with a life span perspective, the authors present a basic framework for extending the study of autobiographical memory. The life perspective suggests not only the consideration of individual episodes of memory but how they are strung together into a life. The life span perspective takes into account the chronological age and life context of individuals and how these factors might affect abilities and motivations related to the use of autobiographical memory. The authors discuss how these 2 perspectives are combined to yield a useful framework for studying autobiographical memory and present 2 examples of work done using this framework. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotional reactivity across the adult life span: The cognitive pragmatics make a difference.

Previously, we found that during films about age-typical losses, older adults experienced greater sadness than young adults, whereas their physiological responses were just as large. In the present study, our goal was to replicate this finding and extend past work by examining the role of cognitive functioning in age differences in emotional reactivity. We measured the autonomic and subjective responses of 240 adults (age range = 20 to 70) while they viewed films about age-typical losses from our previous work. Findings were fully supportive of our past work: The magnitude of subjective reactions to our films increased linearly over the adult years, whereas there were no age differences on the level of physiological reactivity. We also found that the subjective reactions of adults with high pragmatic intelligence were of moderate size independent of their own age or the age relevance of the emotion elicitor. In contrast, the subjective reactions of adults low on pragmatic intelligence were more variable. Together, this evidence suggests that research on age differences in emotional reactivity may benefit from a perspective that considers individual difference variables as well as contextual variations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Tracking the trajectory of shame, guilt, and pride across the life span.

The authors examined age differences in shame, guilt, and 2 forms of pride (authentic and hubristic) from age 13 years to age 89 years, using cross-sectional data from 2,611 individuals. Shame decreased from adolescence into middle adulthood, reaching a nadir around age 50 years, and then increased in old age. Guilt increased from adolescence into old age, reaching a plateau at about age 70 years. Authentic pride increased from adolescence into old age, whereas hubristic pride decreased from adolescence into middle adulthood, reaching a minimum around age 65 years, and then increased in old age. On average, women reported experiencing more shame and guilt; Blacks reported experiencing less shame and Asians more hubristic pride than other ethnicities. Across the life span, shame and hubristic pride tended to be negatively related to psychological well-being, and shame-free guilt and authentic pride showed positive relations with well-being. Overall, the findings support the maturity principle of personality development and suggest that as people age they become more prone to experiencing psychologically adaptive self-conscious emotions, such as guilt and authentic pride, and less prone to experiencing psychologically maladaptive ones, such as shame and hubristic pride. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age differences in five personality domains across the life span.

The present study addresses the issue of age differences in 5 personality domains across the life span in a cross-sectional study. In contrast to most previous studies, the present study follows a methodologically more rigorous approach to warrant that age-related differences in personality structure and mean level can be meaningfully compared. It uses data on 50 items of the Five-Factor Personality Inventory (FFPI) available from a study in a large and representative Dutch sample (N = 2,494; age range: 16 to 91 years) conducted in 1996 for the purpose of establishing norms for the FFPI. After having established strict measurement invariance, tests were made for factor covariances to be equal across age groups, revealing structural continuity of personality. Additionally, factor variances were shown to be equal across age groups. A number of age differences in the mean level of the five personality domains emerged. Specifically, older adults were, on average, more agreeable and, especially, more conscientious than middle-aged and younger adults. Findings from our study suggest that both continuity and change may mark personality over the course of life. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age differences in the monitoring of learning: Cross-sectional evidence of spared resolution across the adult life span.

Researchers of metacognitive development in adulthood have exclusively used extreme-age-groups designs. We used a full cross-sectional sample (N = 285, age range: 18–80) to evaluate how associative relatedness and encoding strategies influence judgments of learning (JOLs) in adulthood. Participants studied related and unrelated word pairs and made JOLs. After a cued-recall test, retrospective item strategy reports were collected. Results revealed developmental patterns not available from previous studies (e.g., a linear age-related increase in aggregate JOL resolution across the life span). They also demonstrated the value of investigating multiple cues' influences on JOLs. Multilevel regression models showed that both relatedness and effective strategy use positively and independently influenced JOLs. Furthermore, effective strategy use was responsible for higher resolution of JOLs for unrelated items (relative to related items). The effects of relatedness and strategy use with JOLs did not interact with age. The monitoring of learning is spared by adult development despite age differences in learning itself. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An Internet study of prospective memory across adulthood.

In an Internet study, 73,018 18–79-year-olds were asked to “remember to click the smiley face when it appears.” A smiley face was present/absent at encoding, and participants were told to expect it “at the end of the test”/“later in the test.” In all 4 conditions, the smiley face occurred after 20 min of retrospective memory tests. Prospective remembering benefited at all ages from both prior target exposure and temporal uncertainty; moreover, it resembled working memory in its linear decline from young adulthood. The study demonstrates the power of Internet methodology to reveal age-related deficits in a single-trial prospective memory task outside the laboratory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The development of attentional networks: Cross-sectional findings from a life span sample.

Using a population-based sample of 263 individuals ranging from 6 to 89 years of age, we investigated the gains and losses in the abilities to (a) use exogenous cues to shift attention covertly and (b) ignore conflicting information across the life span. The participants’ ability to shift visual attention was tested by a typical Posner-type orienting task with valid and invalid peripheral cues. To tap conflict resolution, we asked participants to perform a color version of the Eriksen-type flanker task. The observed cross-sectional age differences in our data indicate that the ability to deal with conflicting information and the ability to covertly orient attention show different cross-sectional age gradients during childhood and that only conflict resolution mechanisms show a marked negative age difference in old age. Moreover, the data suggest that although the overall performance of the participants can, in part, be accounted for by individual differences in information processing speed, performance in the orienting and conflict task depends on factors related to the specific development of the two attentional systems in question. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A multilevel model analysis of expertise in chess across the life span.

The authors examined longitudinal change in chess skill using a multilevel model analysis of a large database of active, elite chess players (N = 5,011). Parameters estimated from quadratic growth curves indicated that the age of peak performance occurs later in life than originally proposed and that this peak is independent of initial skill level. The findings are also consistent with the hypothesis that aging is slightly kinder to the initially more able, who show milder decline past their peak. Higher tournament activity levels predicted higher ratings overall and interacted with age in the initially more able sample, suggesting that activity had smaller effects on rating for older adults. The authors discuss implications of these findings for lifetime changes in skilled performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differences in the functional neuroanatomy of inhibitory control across the adult life span.

Inhibitory control, the ability to suppress irrelevant stimuli, is a fundamental cognitive function that deteriorates during aging, but little is understood about the bases of decline. Thus, we used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study inhibitory control in healthy adults aged 18 to 78. Activation during "successful inhibition" occurred predominantly in right prefrontal and parietal regions and was more extensive, bilaterally, and prefrontally, in the older groups. Presupplementary motor area was also more active in poorer inhibitory performers. Therefore, older adults activate areas that are comparable to those activated by young adults during inhibition, as well as additional regions. The results are consistent with a compensatory interpretation and extend the aging neuroimaging literature into the cognitive domain of inhibition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Spacing as the friend of both memory and induction in young and older adults.

We compared the effects of spaced versus massed practice on young and older adults' ability to learn visually complex paintings. We expected a spacing advantage when 1 painting per artist was studied repeatedly and tested (repetition) but perhaps a massing advantage, especially for older adults, when multiple different paintings by each artist were studied and tested (induction). We were surprised to find that spacing facilitated both inductive and repetition learning by both young and older adults, even though the participants rated massing superior to spacing for inductive learning. Thus, challenging learners of any age appears to have unintuitive benefits for both memory and induction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Partner preferences across the life span: Online dating by older adults.

Stereotypes of older adults as withdrawn or asexual fail to recognize that romantic relationships in later life are increasingly common. The authors analyzed 600 Internet personal ads from 4 age groups: 20–34, 40–54, 60–74, and 75+ years. Predictions from evolutionary theory held true in later life, when reproduction is no longer a concern. Across the life span, men sought physical attractiveness and offered status-related information more than women; women were more selective than men and sought status more than men. With age, men desired women increasingly younger than themselves, whereas women desired older men until ages 75 and over, when they sought men younger than themselves. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Memory for object location: A span study in children.

The aim of the present study was to analyze the developmental changes in three spatial processes, namely, in positional reconstruction involving the retention of spatial locations per se (Positional encoding task), in the assignment of objects to positions (Object-to-position assignment task), and in the integration of these two (Combined task). A span procedure was used to assess the development of spatial memory in children aged 6, 8, and 10 years tested in these three tasks. The findings of the present study provide developmental spans for each relocation task. Results show an age-dependent improvement in all tasks, suggesting that spatial position is not automatically encoded. The results also show different developmental patterns for the relocation tasks considered, suggesting that spatial memory comprises a number of different component processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Memory and Aging in Context.

Much research has indicated that aging is accompanied by decrements in memory performance across a wide variety of tasks and situations. A dominant perspective is that these age differences reflect normative changes in the integrity and efficiency of the information-processing system. Contextual perspectives of development, however, argue for consideration of a broader constellation of factors as determinants of both intraindividual change and interindividual variation in memory functioning. The validity of the contextual perspective in characterizing the relationship between aging and memory is examined through a review of studies exploring a variety of alternative mechanisms associated with age differences in performance. It is concluded that a more multidimensional approach to the study of aging and memory is warranted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The influence of emotional valence on age differences in early processing and memory.

This study examined older and younger adults' attentional biases and subsequent incidental recognition memory for distracting positive, negative, and neutral words. Younger adults were more distracted by negative stimuli than by positive or neutral stimuli, and they correctly recognized more negative than positive words. Older adults, however, attended equally to all stimuli yet showed reliable recognition only for positive words. Thus, although an attentional bias toward negative words carried over into recognition performance for younger adults, older adults' bias appeared to be limited to remembering positive information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attachment and the processing of social information across the life span: Theory and evidence.

Researchers have used J. Bowlby's (1969/1982, 1973, 1980, 1988) attachment theory frequently as a basis for examining whether experiences in close personal relationships relate to the processing of social information across childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. We present an integrative life-span–encompassing theoretical model to explain the patterns of results that have emerged from these studies. The central proposition is that individuals who possess secure experience-based internal working models of attachment will process—in a relatively open manner—a broad range of positive and negative attachment-relevant social information. Moreover, secure individuals will draw on their positive attachment-related knowledge to process this information in a positively biased schematic way. In contrast, individuals who possess insecure internal working models of attachment will process attachment-relevant social information in one of two ways, depending on whether the information could cause the individual psychological pain. If processing the information is likely to lead to psychological pain, insecure individuals will defensively exclude this information from further processing. If, however, the information is unlikely to lead to psychological pain, then insecure individuals will process this information in a negatively biased schematic fashion that is congruent with their negative attachment-related experiences. In a comprehensive literature review, we describe studies that illustrate these patterns of attachment-related information processing from childhood to adulthood. This review focuses on studies that have examined specific components (e.g., attention and memory) and broader aspects (e.g., attributions) of social information processing. We also provide general conclusions and suggestions for future research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)