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.     

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)     

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)     

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)     

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)     

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)     

Monitoring one's own forgetting in younger and older adults.

The present study examined whether there are age-related differences in the ability to accurately monitor forgetting. Young and older adults studied a mixed list of categorized words, and later recalled items when cued with each category. They then estimated the number of additional items that they did not recall—a form of monitoring one's forgetting. Older adults exhibited impaired memory performance compared with young adults, but also accurately estimated they forgot more information than young adults. Both age groups were fairly accurate in predicting forgetting in terms of resolution, indicating that aging does not impair the ability to monitor forgetting. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 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)     

Cognitive skill acquisition and transfer in younger and older adults.

The acquisition of cognitive skills often depends on 1 of (or a combination of) 2 processes, the execution of an algorithm, and the retrieval of problem instances. This study examined the effects of age and repetition of problem instances on the production and verification of solutions to 2 serially presented sets of alphabet arithmetic problems. Analyses of the parameters derived from power-function fits for individuals revealed age differences favoring young adults in improvement span, learning rate, and asymptote. For both age groups, the beneficial effects of repetitions on 1st-set response times were attributable to algorithmic speedup and to the retrieval of instances, whereas improvements in the speed of 2nd-set response times were attributable primarily to item retrieval. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reading speed and prose memory in older and younger adults.

A method is described for determining the minimum amount of time required to read a proposition in the context of a sentence. This threshold reading time was reliable, stable, and significantly longer for older adults than for younger adults. Prose memory was assessed for texts presented at varying speeds determined by the threshold reading time measure and by a whole-text reading time measure. Recall from these paced conditions was compared with recall from a self-paced condition. In general, age differences in recall tended to increase as the amount of time allowed for processing increased. The results of regression analyses suggest that although the basic speed of processing for a single sentence accounts for substantial variance in prose recall, processes that operate across sentence boundaries are also important and require further specification. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive monitoring and strategy choice in younger and older adults.

Younger (24- to 39-year-old) and older (60- to 88-year-old) adults learned a list of vocabulary words; one half of the words were studied using a generally more powerful strategy (mnemonic keyword method), and one half mediated with a less powerful approach (generating semantic contexts). Before using these strategies as part of the experiment, neither younger nor older adults judged that the keyword method was more effective and neither group preferred one strategy over the other. After using the strategies and taking a test of strategically studied unfamiliar vocabulary words, the younger subjects reported accurately the relative effectiveness of the two strategies and selected the one that had worked better for them to apply to a subsequent list of vocabulary items. The older participants were not as aware of the differential potency of the strategies and did not rely as much as did the younger subjects on knowledge of strategy utility in making strategy choices. In short, metacognitive awareness of strategy effects produced by monitoring and use of metacognitive awareness in regulating strategy choice were more pronounced in the younger compared with the older sample in this study. (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.     

Emotional complexity in younger, midlife, and older adults.

Questions pertaining to emotional complexity in adult development are being pursued from a number of vantage points. The current studies sought to clarify the study of emotional complexity by comparing and contrasting 2 dominant perspectives on emotional complexity in different age groups (i.e., covariation and absolute-level approaches). Results indicate that emotional complexity is a multifaceted construct and that methodology will impact substantive findings and developmental trends that emerge from the data. Recommendations and considerations for future research are discussed, including, for example, within- versus cross-domain ideas of emotional complexity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Resource allocation in on-line reading by younger and older adults.

Younger and older adults read a series of expository passages for immediate recall by self-pacing the presentation sector-by-sector on a computer screen. Regression analysis of sector reading times (RT) was used to estimate the time allocated by individuals to word-level (i.e., syllable length and mean word frequency), text-level (i.e., number of propositions, number of new concepts introduced, and total Yngve depth), and discourse-level (i.e., serial position) features. Age differences were found in the pattern of reading time allocation that engendered high levels of recall. Specifically, younger adults who achieved high recall were more responsive to word frequency and the introduction of new concepts. By contrast, high recall among the old was related to a greater degree of on-line contextual facilitation (i.e., a steeper serial position effect). These data suggest that there is an age difference in how the allocation of resources at encoding optimizes subsequent memory performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Neural basis for recognition confidence in younger and older adults.

Although several studies have examined the neural basis for age-related changes in objective memory performance, less is known about how the process of memory monitoring changes with aging. The authors used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine retrospective confidence in memory performance in aging. During low confidence, both younger and older adults showed behavioral evidence that they were guessing during recognition and that they were aware they were guessing when making confidence judgments. Similarly, both younger and older adults showed increased neural activity during low- compared to high-confidence responses in the lateral prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, and left intraparietal sulcus. In contrast, older adults showed more high-confidence errors than younger adults. Younger adults showed greater activity for high compared to low confidence in medial temporal lobe structures, but older adults did not show this pattern. Taken together, these findings may suggest that impairments in the confidence–accuracy relationship for memory in older adults, which are often driven by high-confidence errors, may be primarily related to altered neural signals associated with greater activity for high-confidence responses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

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)     

Object- and location-based inhibition of return in younger and older adults.

When a cued object moves to new spatial coordinates, inhibition of return (IOR) with younger adults is found at the original cued location (location-based IOR) and at the current location of the object (object-based IOR). Older adults, however, show only location-based IOR. To determine whether this pattern of results represents a general age-related deficit in object-based IOR, the authors used static displays in which the placeholders (i.e., objects) were either present (location-based IOR + object-based IOR) or absent (location-based IOR only). Both age groups showed location-based IOR, but the older adults failed to show object-based IOR, consistent with age-related differences in visual pathways. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Type A behavior pattern and emotion expression in younger and older adults": Correction.

Reports an error in the original article by C. Malatesta-Magai et al (Psychology & Aging, 1992[Dec], Vol 7[4], 551–561). A citation that was inadvertently omitted from the original article is provided. (The following abstract of this article originally appeared in record 1993-17168-001.) 80 younger (M?=?28 yrs) and 80 older (>50 yrs, M?=?69 yrs) Type A and Type B Ss were evaluated for Type A behavior pattern using the Structured Interview (SI) and given personality tests for anxiety, depression, anger, aggression, hostility, and anger-in–anger-out. Ss also underwent an emotion induction procedure. Videotapes of the emotion induction procedure (N?=?160) and the SI (N?=?80) were coded for facial expression of emotion. Type As did not differ from Bs on anxiety or depression but did on anger and aggression. Type As showed anger inhibition and anger bound to shame, as predicted by emotion socialization theory. The greatest number of differential effects were observed between age groups. Older individuals, in general, were more emotionally expressive than younger Ss across a range of emotions. Women appeared more conflicted about anger expression than men, and Type A women more so than Type A men. (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)     

Perceptual specificity and implicit auditory priming in older and younger adults.

Age differences in perceptual specificity for implicit auditory priming were examined in 3 experiments. All 3 experiments began with a study phase during which participants rated words based on perceptual (shallow encoding) or semantic (deep encoding) attributes. After the study phase, participants were asked to identify filtered versions of repeated and new words (implicit test) and then to make old/new recognition judgments (explicit test). In contrast to earlier findings (D. L. Schacter, B. Church, & D. M. Osowiecki, 1994), older and younger adults were equally sensitive to study-to-test changes in speaking rate (Experiment 1), fundamental frequency (Experiment 2), and voice (Experiment 3). Explicit memory, in contrast, was significantly poorer for older adults but was minimally affected by changes in surface features. Findings from the study are discussed with respect to their implications for establishing the mechanisms mediating perceptual specificity and for their importance in understanding age-related changes in implicit memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)