Working memory training in older adults: Evidence of transfer and maintenance effects.

Few studies have examined working memory (WM) training-related gains and their transfer and maintenance effects in older adults. This present research investigates the efficacy of a verbal WM training program in adults aged 65–75 years, considering specific training gains on a verbal WM (criterion) task as well as transfer effects on measures of visuospatial WM, short-term memory, inhibition, processing speed, and fluid intelligence. Maintenance of training benefits was evaluated at 8-month follow-up. Trained older adults showed higher performance than did controls on the criterion task and maintained this benefit after 8 months. Substantial general transfer effects were found for the trained group, but not for the control one. Transfer maintenance gains were found at follow-up, but only for fluid intelligence and processing speed tasks. The results are discussed in terms of cognitive plasticity in older adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Working memory plasticity in old age: Practice gain, transfer, and maintenance.

Adult age differences in cognitive plasticity have been studied less often in working memory than in episodic memory. The authors investigated the effects of extensive working memory practice on performance improvement, transfer, and short-term maintenance of practice gains and transfer effects. Adults age 20-30 years and 70-80 years practiced a spatial working memory task with 2 levels of processing demands across 45 days for about 15 min per day. In both age groups and relative to age-matched, no-contact control groups, we found (a) substantial performance gains on the practiced task, (b) near transfer to a more demanding spatial n-back task and to numerical n-back tasks, and (c) 3-month maintenance of practice gains and near transfer effects, with decrements relative to postpractice performance among older but not younger adults. No evidence was found for far transfer to complex span tasks. The authors discuss neuronal mechanisms underlying adult age differences and similarities in patterns of plasticity and conclude that the potential of deliberate working memory practice as a tool for improving cognition in old age merits further exploration. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aging, memory load, and resource allocation during reading.

To test the notion that aging brings an inability to self-initiate processing, the authors investigated the effects of memory load on online sentence understanding. Younger and older adults read a series of short passages with or without a simultaneous updating task, which would be expected to deplete resources by consuming memory capacity. Regression analyses of word-by-word reading times onto text variables within each condition were used to decompose reading times into resources allocated to the array of word-level and textbase-level processes needed for comprehension. Among neither the young nor the old were word-level processes disrupted by a simultaneous memory load. However, older readers showed relatively greater levels of resource allocation to conceptual integration than the younger adults when under load, regardless of working-memory span or task priority. These results suggest that the ability to self-initiate the allocation of processing resources during reading is preserved among older readers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Understanding performance and learning in consistent memory search: An age-related perspective.

This study was conducted to investigate learning in memory search tasks. Young and old participants were trained for 5,640 trials of consistent mapping (CM) and varied mapping (VM) memory search. After training, participants were transferred into New CM and CM Reversal conditions. During training, both young and old adults improved reaction time performance, with more rapid improvement for the young adults. In CM training, both age groups achieved zero comparison slopes, indicating automaticity in CM memory search. VM training maintained a large age-related difference in search times. Age did not moderate the transfer effects, suggesting similar learning mechanisms were responsible for the original CM training gains in both age groups; however, transfer effects were different for CM Reversal and New CM. The pattern of transfer data argues against several possible mechanisms for automaticity in memory search. The data are most compatible with a hypothesis of memory-set unitization as the locus of automaticity in memory search. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Everyday memory failure: Age differences in appraisal and attribution.

A person perception paradigm was used to test 86 young and 84 older Ss for evidence of a double standard in appraising everyday memory failures of young and older targets. Vignettes were judged on separate Likert scales for possible attributions for the failure (ability, effort, task difficulty, chance, and 2 measures of attention), signs of mental difficulty, need for memory training, and indications of need for professional evaluation. Results confirmed a double standard used by young and old: The failures of older targets were judged as signifying greater mental difficulty and greater need for memory training than were the identical failures of young targets. Older Ss were more lenient overall than young Ss in their appraisals. Young Ss judged target persons' memory failures as signifying more mental difficulty, and they more readily recommended professional evaluation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age differences in dual-task performance after practice.

This study investigated whether older adults could acquire the ability to perform 2 cognitive operations in parallel in a paradigm in which young adults had been shown to be able to do so (K. Oberauer & R. Kliegl, 2004). Twelve young and 12 older adults practiced a numerical and a visuospatial continuous memory updating task in single-task and dual-task conditions for 16 to 24 sessions. After practice, 9 young adults were able to process the 2 tasks without dual-task costs, but none of the older adults had reached the criterion of parallel processing. The results suggest a qualitative difference between young and older adults in how they approach dual-task situations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Distinguishing Age Differences in Knowledge, Strategy Use, and Confidence During Strategic Skill Acquisition.

The authors examined how age differences in strategy selection are related to associative learning deficits and metacognitive variables, including memory ability confidence. In Experiment 1, increases in memory reliance for performance of the noun-pair lookup task were compared with increases in noun-pair memory ability. In Experiment 2, memory reliance was assessed for noun pairs memorized prior to the task. In each experiment, older adults manifested a substantial delay in transition to a retrieval-based strategy despite comparable noun-pair knowledge. In Experiment 3, young and older adults reported comparable confidence ratings for the accuracy of each memory probe response. However, older adults reported lower confidence in their general ability to use the memory retrieval strategy, which correlated with avoidance of the retrieval strategy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aging and the vulnerability of speech to dual task demands.

Tracking a digital pursuit rotor task was used to measure dual task costs of language production by young and older adults. Tracking performance by both groups was affected by dual task demands: time on target declined and tracking error increased as dual task demands increased from the baseline condition to a moderately demanding dual task condition to a more demanding dual task condition. When dual task demands were moderate, older adults' speech rate declined but their fluency, grammatical complexity, and content were unaffected. When the dual task was more demanding, older adults' speech, like young adults' speech, became highly fragmented, ungrammatical, and incoherent. Vocabulary, working memory, processing speed, and inhibition affected vulnerability to dual task costs: vocabulary provided some protection for sentence length and grammaticality, working memory conferred some protection for grammatical complexity, and processing speed provided some protection for speech rate, propositional density, coherence, and lexical diversity. Further, vocabulary and working memory capacity provided more protection for older adults than for young adults although the protective effect of processing speed was somewhat reduced for older adults as compared to the young adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Can training in a real-time strategy video game attenuate cognitive decline in older adults?

Declines in various cognitive abilities, particularly executive control functions, are observed in older adults. An important goal of cognitive training is to slow or reverse these age-related declines. However, opinion is divided in the literature regarding whether cognitive training can engender transfer to a variety of cognitive skills in older adults. In the current study, the authors trained older adults in a real-time strategy video game for 23.5 hr in an effort to improve their executive functions. A battery of cognitive tasks, including tasks of executive control and visuospatial skills, were assessed before, during, and after video-game training. The trainees improved significantly in the measures of game performance. They also improved significantly more than the control participants in executive control functions, such as task switching, working memory, visual short-term memory, and reasoning. Individual differences in changes in game performance were correlated with improvements in task switching. The study has implications for the enhancement of executive control processes of older adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Instance-based automaticity and aging: Acquisition, reacquisition, and long-term retention.

This research examined age differences in the acquisition and reacquisition of instance-based automaticity. In 2 experiments, young and older adults were trained to enumerate targets presented in otherwise empty displays or in displays that contained distractors. Experiment 1 revealed that older adults required more practice to reach asymptote than young adults. For both age groups, modifications of the identities and locations of targets produced substantial disruptions in performance, whereas modifications of the identities or locations of distractors produced little interference. However, no age differences in the representations of instances in memory were obtained in participants who reached asymptote. Experiment 2 revealed age deficits in the long-term retention and rate of reacquisition of instance-based automaticity 18 months after initial training. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Isometric pinch force control and learning in older adults

The learning of a dynamic isometric pinch force task was investigated in young adults (aged 19 to 29 years) and older adults (aged 64 to 75 years) through use of a visuo-motor tracking paradigm. Both groups significantly improved performance over trials, retained what was learned 1 week later, successfully transferred to a new target, and demonstrated interlimb transfer of training effects, reflecting a strong central component to this task that is apparently intact in older adults. However, performance differences between the two groups remained throughout the trials. Although it appeared that older adults were able to utilize a model-based strategy to predict the target path, as evidenced by minimal response lag, their absolute performance was inferior to that of young adults relative to an overall root mean square error score, a correlation coefficient, and their increased use of high-frequency components in the tracking signal. The age-related performance differences may be attributable to a peripheral decrement in tactile sensibility and/or muscle reorganization as well as a slowness in processing afferent information.     

Age differences in visual search: Target and distractor learning.

Age differences in a semantic category visual search task were investigated to determine whether the age effects were due to target learning deficits, distractor learning deficits, or a combination thereof. 12 young (mean age 20 yrs) and 12 older adults (mean age 70 yrs) received 2,400 trials each in consistent and varied versions of the search task. Following training, a series of transfer–reversal manipulations allowed the assessment of target learning and distractor learning both in isolation and in combination. The pattern of data suggests that older adults have a deficit in their ability to increase the attention–attraction strength of targets and to decrease the attention–attraction strength of distractors. The results are interpreted in terms of a strength-based framework of visual search performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The use of biological markers for the study and prevention of chronic degenerative diseases. 1. Definitions, scope of the study and classification

Visual event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded during a running memory task, in which subjects dynamically revised (updated) memory stores, and a control task not requiring maintenance of a changing memory set but utilising identical stimulus sequences and response patterns. In three experiments, ERPs associated with cognitive processes were isolated through subtraction of control potentials from ERPs acquired during updating. We provide evidence that resultant difference ERPs primarily reflected processing or processing control, as opposed to storage. These findings are consistent both with Baddeley's working memory model, which postulates separate storage and control modules, and Morris and Jones' behavioral evidence for specific involvement of Baddeley's central executive in memory updating. In addition, our ERP data indicate that updating requires processes not suggested by Morris and Jones' behavioural studies; possibly control processes engaged to reduce the effects of proactive interference. Overall the data are consistent with the discovery of an ERP correlate of central executive activity.     

Correction to Emery, Hale, and Myerson (2008).

Reports an error in "Age differences in proactive interference, working memory, and abstract reasoning" by Lisa Emery, Sandra Hale and Joel Myerson (Psychology and Aging, 2008[Sep], Vol 23[3], 634-645). The original article contained an incorrect DOI. The correct DOI is as follows: 10.1037/a0012577. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2008-13050-014.) It has been hypothesized that older adults are especially susceptible to proactive interference (PI) and that this may contribute to age differences in working memory performance. In young adults, individual differences in PI affect both working memory and reasoning ability, but the relations between PI, working memory, and reasoning in older adults have not been examined. In the current study, young, old, and very old adults performed a modified operation span task that induced several cycles of PI buildup and release as well as two tests of abstract reasoning ability. Age differences in working memory scores increased as PI built up, consistent with the hypothesis that older adults are more susceptible to PI, but both young and older adults showed complete release from PI. Young adults' reasoning ability was best predicted by working memory performance under high PI conditions, replicating M. Bunting (2006). In contrast, older adults' reasoning ability was best predicted by their working memory performance under low PI conditions, thereby raising questions regarding the general role of susceptibility to PI in differences in higher cognitive function among older adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age differences in proactive interference, working memory, and abstract reasoning.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 23(4) of Psychology and Aging (see record 2008-19072-007). The original article contained an incorrect DOI. The correct DOI is as follows: 10.1037/a0012577.] It has been hypothesized that older adults are especially susceptible to proactive interference (PI) and that this may contribute to age differences in working memory performance. In young adults, individual differences in PI affect both working memory and reasoning ability, but the relations between PI, working memory, and reasoning in older adults have not been examined. In the current study, young, old, and very old adults performed a modified operation span task that induced several cycles of PI buildup and release as well as two tests of abstract reasoning ability. Age differences in working memory scores increased as PI built up, consistent with the hypothesis that older adults are more susceptible to PI, but both young and older adults showed complete release from PI. Young adults' reasoning ability was best predicted by working memory performance under high PI conditions, replicating M. Bunting (2006). In contrast, older adults' reasoning ability was best predicted by their working memory performance under low PI conditions, thereby raising questions regarding the general role of susceptibility to PI in differences in higher cognitive function among older adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adult age differences in the effects of goals on self-regulated sentence processing.

The authors examined age differences in adults' allocation of effort when reading text for either high levels of recall accuracy or high levels of efficiency. Participants read a series of sentences, making judgments of learning before recall. Older adults showed less sensitivity than the young to the accuracy goal in both reading time allocation and memory performance. Memory accuracy and differential allocation of effort to unlearned items were age equivalent, so age differences in goal adherence were not attributable to metacognitive factors. However, comparison with data from a control reading task without monitoring showed that learning gains among older adults across trial were reduced relative to those of the young by memory monitoring, suggesting that monitoring may be resource consuming for older learners. Age differences in the responsiveness to (information-acquisition) goals could be accounted for, in part, by independent contributions from working memory and memory self-efficacy. Our data suggest that both processing capacity ("what you have") and beliefs ("knowing you can do it") can contribute to individual differences in engaging resources ("what you do") to effectively learn novel content from text. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Executive function in daily life: Age-related influences of executive processes on instrumental activities of daily living.

The present study of older adults used structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine the relationships between 3 executive processes underlying executive function (EF) (inhibition, task switching, updating in working memory), and 2 types of instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs) (self-report, performance based). Experimental tasks of executive attention and self-report or performance-based IADL tests were administered to create latent constructs of EF and IADLs. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to examine the construct validity of EF and IADLs. This analysis indicated a 3-factor model of inhibition, updating, and task switching and a 2-factor model of self-report and performance-based IADLs. As predicted, when the latent variable relationships were analyzed, executive processes had a significant relationship with performance-based, but not self-report, IADLs. In addition, task switching had a strong and significant relationship with performance-based IADLs. The results of this study uniquely show a direct relationship between executive processes and performance-based IADLs, thus demonstrating the ecological utility of experimental measures of EF to predict daily function. Furthermore, these results point to areas of cognitive training that may strategically impact older adults' performance on daily life activities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sex, Age, and Training Modulate Spatial Memory in the Rhesus Monkey (Macaca mulatta).

The authors tested 90 rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) on a task of spatial memory, the spatial Delayed Recognition Span Test. The results showed that performance declined significantly with age, males had greater scores than females, and the rate of apparent decline with age was greater in males than in females. Both working and reference memory declined with age, but only working memory showed sex differences. The authors compared these data with that of 22 monkeys who were trained on a simpler version of the task before formal testing. Training had no effect on males but dramatically improved working memory in young females. The results confirm a male advantage in spatial working memory at a young age and confirm a greater decline with age in males than in females. It is important to note that prior training completely reverses the deficits of young females. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Processing relational and item-specific information: Effects of aging and division of attention.

64 young adults (aged 18–21 yrs) and 32 older Ss (aged 65–83 yrs) encoded items from categorizable lists under incidental learning conditions. Two orienting tasks were used: a category sorting task and a pleasantness rating task. The number of items/category was varied (between 2 and 14) within each list. In addition, 24 young adults performed the orienting tasks while simultaneously engaged in an attention-demanding secondary task (divided-attention condition). Recall declined with both age and division of attention, while recall clustering was greatest for the older Ss and least for the young divided-attention Ss. The effects of category size and orienting task on recall did not vary across groups. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Alternative mechanisms for improvements in fluid ability performance among older adults.

To cross-validate and extend previous work regarding fluid ability training, I randomly assigned 256 community-living older participants to either induction training, stress inoculation training, or no-contact control groups. Practice effects were common to almost all of the ability measures, whereas training effects were specific to measures of inductive reasoning. Both training groups demonstrated greater immediate posttest gains in Letter Sets performance relative to control groups, which were maintained to the greatest extent one month later for the induction training group. The control and stress inoculation groups experienced slight declines one month later, although performance differences still favored the latter. For Letter Series, one week follow-up findings favored both induction and stress inoculation conditions, whereas only the stress inoculation group demonstrated gains at one month follow-up. No differential pattern of training transfer to other components of Gf–Gc was observed. These data suggest alternative means by which the facilitation of intellectual competence in older adults may be accomplished. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)