Do younger and older adults’ communicative goals influence off-topic speech in autobiographical narratives?

The present research investigated younger and older adults’ communicative goals and their effects on off-topic speech for autobiographical narratives. Participants indicated their communicative goals by rating preferences among paired goals, for example, focus–fascinating, one of which was designated as an expressive goal, appropriate for producing elaborative speech, and one of which was an objective goal, suited to producing concise speech. The participants then told stories about episodic and procedural topics, which were rated by groups of younger and older listeners. Age differences emerged in communicative goals, where younger adults clearly favored expressive goals for episodic topics and objective goals for procedural topics. In contrast, older adults’ goals were more diverse, consisting of a mixture of expressive and objective goals for both topic types, without a clear preference. Younger adults’ goals predicted ratings of off-topic speech assessed by listeners: Younger and older adults were perceived as equivalently focused, coherent, and clear for episodic topics, but older adults were perceived as less focused, less clear, and more talkative than younger adults on procedural topics. These results suggest that age-related changes in off-topic speech emerge as a result of younger adults selecting goals designed to produce more succinct stories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Speech Comprehension Difficulties in Older Adults: Cognitive Slowing or Age-Related Changes in Hearing?

Speech comprehension declines more rapidly in older adults than in younger adults as speech rate increases. This effect is usually attributed to a slowing of brain function with age. Alternatively, this Age X Speed interaction could reflect the inability of the older adult's auditory system to cope with speed-induced stimulus degradation. When the authors speeded speech in a way that produced minimal degradation, both age groups were equally affected. However, when speech was speeded using other methods, word identification declined more in older than in younger adults. Hence, auditory decline rather than cognitive slowing may be responsible for older adults' poorer performance in speeded conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differential effects of age on involuntary and voluntary autobiographical memory.

Research on aging and autobiographical memory has focused almost exclusively on voluntary autobiographical memory. However, in everyday life, autobiographical memories often come to mind spontaneously without deliberate attempt to retrieve anything. In the present study, diary and word-cue methods were used to compare the involuntary and voluntary memories of 44 young and 38 older adults. The results showed that older adults reported fewer involuntary and voluntary memories than did younger adults. Additionally, the life span distribution of involuntary and voluntary memories did not differ in young adults (a clear recency effect) or in older adults (a recency effect and a reminiscence bump). Despite these similarities between involuntary and voluntary memories, there were also important differences in terms of the effects of age on some memory characteristics. Thus, older adults’ voluntary memories were less specific and were recalled more slowly than those of young adults, but there were no reliable age differences in the specificity of involuntary memories. Moreover, older adults rated their involuntary memories as more positive than did young adults, but this positivity effect was not found for voluntary memories. Theoretical implications of these findings for research on autobiographical memory and cognitive aging are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Does the Information Content of an Irrelevant Source Differentially Affect Spoken Word Recognition in Younger and Older Adults?

To determine whether older adults find it difficult to inhibit the processing of irrelevant speech, the authors asked younger and older adults to listen to and repeat meaningless sentences (e.g., "A rose could paint a fish") when the perceived location of the masker (speech or noise) but not the target was manipulated. Separating the perceived location (but not the physical location) of the masker from the target speech produced a much larger improvement in performance when the masker was informational (2 people talking) than when the masker was noise. However, the size of this effect was the same for younger and older adults, suggesting that cognitive-level interference from an irrelevant source was no worse for older adults than it was for younger adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Does audiovisual speech offer a fountain of youth for old ears? An event-related brain potential study of age differences in audiovisual speech perception.

The current study addressed the question whether audiovisual (AV) speech can improve speech perception in older and younger adults in a noisy environment. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded to investigate age-related differences in the processes underlying AV speech perception. Participants performed an object categorization task in three conditions, namely auditory-only (A), visual-only (V), and AVspeech. Both age groups revealed an equivalent behavioral AVspeech benefit over unisensory trials. ERP analyses revealed an amplitude reduction of the auditory P1 and N1 on AVspeech trials relative to the summed unisensory (A + V) response in both age groups. These amplitude reductions are interpreted as an indication of multisensory efficiency as fewer neural resources were recruited to achieve better performance. Of interest, the observed P1 amplitude reduction was larger in older adults. Younger and older adults also showed an earlier auditory N1 in AVspeech relative to A and A + V trials, an effect that was again greater in the older adults. The degree of multisensory latency shift was predicted by basic auditory functioning (i.e., higher hearing thresholds were associated with larger latency shifts) in both age groups. Together, the results show that AV speech processing is not only intact in older adults, but that the facilitation of neural responses occurs earlier in and to a greater extent than in younger adults. Thus, older adults appear to benefit more from additional visual speech cues than younger adults, possibly to compensate for more impoverished unisensory inputs because of sensory aging. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Are the memories of older adults positively biased?

There is disagreement in the literature about whether a "positivity effect" in memory performance exists in older adults. To assess the generalizability of the effect, the authors examined memory for autobiographical, picture, and word information in a group of younger (17-29 years old) and older (60-84 years old) adults. For the autobiographical memory task, the authors asked participants to produce 4 positive, 4 negative, and 4 neutral recent autobiographical memories and to recall these a week later. For the picture and word tasks, participants studied photos or words of different valences (positive, negative, neutral) and later remembered them on a free-recall test. The authors found significant correlations in memory performance, across task material, for recall of both positive and neutral valence autobiographical events, pictures, and words. When the authors examined accurate memories, they failed to find consistent evidence, across the different types of material, of a positivity effect in either age group. However, the false memory findings offer more consistent support for a positivity effect in older adults. During recall of all 3 types of material, older participants recalled more false positive than false negative memories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Distraction by competing speech in young and older adult listeners.

In 2 experiments, young and older adults heard target speech presented in quiet or with a competing speaker in the background. The distractor consisted either of meaningful speech or nonmeaningful speech composed of randomly ordered word strings (Experiment 1) or speech in an unfamiliar language (Experiment 2). Tests of recall for the target speech showed that older adults, but not younger adults, were impaired more by meaningful distractors than by nonmeaningful distracters, However, on a surprise recognition test, young adults were more likely than older adults to recognize meaningful distractor items. These results suggest that reduced efficiency in attentional control is an important factor in older adults' difficulty in recalling target speech in the presence of a background of competing speech. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Saving the best for last: How adults treat social partners of different ages.

Older adults report more positive feelings and fewer problems in their relationships than do younger adults. These positive experiences may partially reflect how people treat older adults. Social partners may treat older adults more kindly due to their sense that time remaining to interact with these older adults is limited. Younger (n = 87, age 22 to 35) and older (n = 89, age 65 to 77) participants indicated how positively they would behave (i.e., express affection, proffer respect, send sentimental cards) and what types of conflict strategies they would use in response to hypothetical negative interactions with two close social partners, a younger adult and an older adult. Multilevel models revealed that participants were more avoidant and less confrontational when interacting with older adults than when interacting with younger adults. Time perspective of the relationship partially mediated these age differences. Younger and older participants were also more likely to select sentimental cards for older partners than for younger partners. Findings build on socioemotional selectivity theory and the social input model to suggest that social partners facilitate better relationships in late life. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Collaboration reduces the frequency of false memories in older and younger adults.

Older (mean age = 74.23) and younger (mean age = 33.50) participants recalled items from 6 briefly exposed household scenes either alone or with their spouses. Collaborative recall was compared with the pooled, nonredundant recall of spouses remembering alone (nominal groups). The authors examined hits, self-generated false memories, and false memories produced by another person's (actually a computer program's) misleading recollections. Older adults reported fewer hits and more self-generated false memories than younger adults. Relative to nominal groups, older and younger collaborating groups reported fewer hits and fewer self-generated false memories. Collaboration also reduced older people's computer-initiated false memories. The memory conversations in the collaborative groups were analyzed for evidence that collaboration inhibits the production of errors and/or promotes quality control processes that detect and eliminate errors. Only older adults inhibited the production of wrong answers, but both age groups eliminated errors during their discussions. The partners played an important role in helping rememberers discard false memories in older and younger couples. The results support the use of collaboration to reduce false recall in both younger and older adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Fast noisy speech: Age differences in processing rapid speech with background noise.

In order to investigate the effects of age on the ability to process speech under conditions of background noise, younger and older adults listened to and reported time-compressed spoken sentences presented with varying levels of background babble. Although the two age groups did not differ significantly in terms of either pure tone averages or in the ability to accurately report the sentences when they were presented in quiet, the older participants showed less tolerance for background noise than younger adults. This age difference in performance was further magnified by increased speech rates, suggesting that both age-related slowing of processing and reduced inhibition of distracting sounds may produce age deficits in speech processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of sad mood on memory in older adults: A test of the mood congruence effect.

Mood congruence effects have long been studied in younger adults. but not in older adults. Socioemotional selectivity theory (SST) suggests that mood congruence could operate differently in older adults. One hundred and nineteen younger and 78 older adults were randomly assigned to sad or neutral mood inductions, using combined Velten and music induction procedures. Results indicated that during sad mood induction both older and younger adults showed enhanced recall of sad words on delayed word list recall task and in autobiographical memory. However, only older adults displayed mood congruence effects on lexical ambiguity and lower recall of positive words in the word list task. Results provided partial support for developmental effects on mood congruence derived from SST. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Renal and hepatic 1 alpha-hydroxylation of 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 in piglets suffering from pseudo vitamin D-deficiency rickets, type I

Research has shown that speech articulated in a clear manner is easier to understand than conversationally spoken speech in both the auditory-only (A-only) and auditory-visual (AV) domains. Because this research has been conducted using younger adults, it is unknown whether age-related changes in auditory and/or visual processing affect older adults' ability to benefit when a talker speaks clearly. The present study examined how speaking mode (clear vs conversational) and presentation mode (A-only vs AV) influenced nonsense sentence recognition by older listeners. Results showed that neither age nor hearing loss limited the amount of benefit that older adults obtained from a talker speaking clearly. However, age was inversely correlated with identification of AV (but not A-only) conversational speech, even when pure-tone thresholds were controlled statistically.     

Expectations for communication with positive and negative subtypes of older adults

The study uses a recently-developed scale for eliciting perceptions, expectations, and evaluations of intergenerational communication. As predicted, it is found that younger adults expect to experience more anxiety, receive more complaining, and receive lower levels of attunement from an older adult who is portrayed as "despondent" than one who is portrayed as a "perfect grandparent." In addition, younger adults with more negative attitudes toward older adults expect to experience more negative effect, anxiety, and communication apprehension, to feel more compassion for the older adult, and to receive lower levels of attunement and more complaining from the older adult than those with more positive attitudes. Surprisingly, younger adults with higher levels of young age identification expect to experience lower levels of apprehension, more attunement from the older adult, and to feel more compassion for the older adult than those with lower levels of age identity. These findings are discussed in terms of theoretical models of intergenerational communication, in particular the communication predicament model. In addition, younger people's feelings of having "helped" an older person are discussed in the context of intergroup theory.     

Aging and emotional memory: Cognitive mechanisms underlying the positivity effect.

Younger adults tend to remember negative information better than positive or neutral information (negativity bias). The negativity bias is reduced in aging, with older adults occasionally exhibiting superior memory for positive, as opposed to negative or neutral, information (positivity bias). Two experiments with younger (N = 24 in Experiment 1, N = 25 in Experiment 2; age range: 18?35 years) and older adults (N = 24 in both experiments; age range: 60?85 years) investigated the cognitive mechanisms responsible for age-related differences in recognition memory for emotional information. Results from diffusion model analyses (R. Ratcliff, 1978) indicated that the effects of valence on response bias were similar in both age groups but that Age × Valence interactions emerged in memory retrieval. Specifically, older adults experienced greater overall familiarity for positive items than younger adults. We interpret this finding in terms of an age-related increase in the accessibility of positive information in long-term memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aging and autobiographical memory: Dissociating episodic from semantic retrieval.

Cognitive aging research documents reduced access to contextually specific episodic details in older adults, whereas access to semantic or other nonepisodic information is preserved or facilitated. The present study extended this finding to autobiographical memory by using a new measure: the Autobiographical Interview. Younger and older adults recalled events from 5 life periods. Protocols were scored according to a reliable system for categorizing episodic and nonepisodic information. Whereas younger adults were biased toward episodic details reflecting happenings, locations, perceptions, and thoughts, older adults favored semantic details not connected to a particular time and place. This pattern persisted after additional structured probing for contextual details. The Autobiographical Interview is a useful instrument for quantifying episodic and semantic contributions to personal remote memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age differences in recollection: Three patterns of enhanced encoding.

Memory encoding conditions can be manipulated in a variety of ways, and many of these methods result in improved recollection for both younger and older adults relative to baseline conditions. Previous results have shown differential age-related patterns of improvement, however, with some manipulations giving equal improvement to young and old participants, some benefiting older adults more, and others benefiting younger adults more. In 2 experiments, the authors show that presenting pictures with words benefited older more than younger participants, word generation benefited both groups equally, and an encoding condition requiring novel integrative processing benefited younger more than older adults. The authors discuss these results in terms of the enhanced elaboration afforded and processing demanded by differential combinations of age groups and encoding conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Masking-level differences in older adults: the effect of the level of the masking noise

In Experiment 1, masking-level differences (MLDs) for a 500-Hz tone at five masker levels were obtained from younger and older adults. For both age groups, there were no reliable increases in MLD once the spectrum level of the masker exceeded 27 dB SPL. MLDs were larger for younger than for older adults over the range of masker levels tested. In Experiment 2, the levels of both the signal and the masker in one ear were attenuated by either 15 or 30 dB relative to their level in the other ear, which was fixed at a spectrum level of 47 dB SPL. MLDs for both age groups declined with increasing IAA and age-related differences were observed in all conditions. The findings of these experiments indicate that (1) age-related differences in MLDs exist even when the level of the masker is sufficiently high that older adults achieve their plateau performance, and (2) older listeners are not disadvantaged more than younger listeners by interaural differences in the level of the input.     

Renal stone disease in older adults

The pathophysiology of stone disorder in older adults, as compared to their younger counterparts, has not been thoroughly investigated. This article examines the differences in serum and urine chemistries between groups that are younger and older than 60 years of age. The principal finding is that stone formation occurs at lower urinary supersaturations in older patients, suggesting that other unexplored factors are significant contributors. The authors then review the possible effect of age on the morbidity of stone disease and the implications of stone disease for the development and management of osteoporosis.