Cultural variation in verbal versus spatial neuropsychological function across the life span.

Established culture-invariant measures are needed for cross-cultural assessment of verbal and visuospatial speed of processing and working memory across the life span. In this study, 32 younger and 32 older adults from China and from the United States were administered numerically based and spatially based measures of speed of processing and working memory. Chinese superiority on the numerically based tasks was found for younger adults. Age and increasing task demands diminished this cultural effect, as predicted by the framework proposed by D. C. Park, R. Nisbett, and T. Hedden (1999). However, the visuospatial measures of both working memory and speed of processing did not differ cross-culturally for either age group. The authors concluded that these visuospatial measures provide culture-invariant estimates of cognitive processes in East Asian and Western cultures, but that numerically based tasks show evidence of cultural and linguistic biases in performance levels. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 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)     

The effects of adult aging and induced positive and negative mood on planning.

Changes in executive functions have been found in older adults and also in young adults experiencing positive or negative mood states. The current study investigated the hypothesis that older adults would show greater executive function impairment following mood induction than young adults. Ninety-six participants (half aged 19-37, half aged 53-80) completed a neutral, positive, or negative mood induction procedure, followed by the Tower of London planning task. Significant interactions were found between age and mood such that older adults showed greater planning impairment than young adults in both the positive and negative mood conditions. Emotionally salient events occurring before testing may interfere with executive function in older adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Bilingualism, Aging, and Cognitive Control: Evidence From the Simon Task.

Previous work has shown that bilingualism is associated with more effective controlled processing in children; the assumption is that the constant management of 2 competing languages enhances executive functions (E. Bialystok, 2001). The present research attempted to determine whether this bilingual advantage persists for adults and whether bilingualism attenuates the negative effects of aging on cognitive control in older adults. Three studies are reported that compared the performance of monolingual and bilingual middle-aged and older adults on the Simon task. Bilingualism was associated with smaller Simon effect costs for both age groups; bilingual participants also responded more rapidly to conditions that placed greater demands on working memory. In all cases the bilingual advantage was greater for older participants. It appears, therefore, that controlled processing is carried out more effectively by bilinguals and that bilingualism helps to offset age-related losses in certain executive processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Transfer of task-switching training in older age: The role of verbal processes.

This study investigated the influence of verbal self-instructions (VSI) on the transfer of task-switching training in older adults (56–78 years). We applied an internally cued switching paradigm in a pretest–training–posttest design. Training-related improvements were not modulated by VSI. Transfer (the pretest–posttest reduction of switch costs) was most pronounced when participants applied the VSI at posttest after practicing the switching task without VSI. The results indicate that in contrast to transfer of executive control training, transfer of (verbal) strategy training seems to be limited and that VSI is most beneficial when the task-switching abilities are already well practiced. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Executive Functioning as a Potential Mediator of Age-Related Cognitive Decline in Normal Adults.

Critical requirements for the hypothesis that executive functioning is a potential mediator of age-related effects on cognitive functioning are that variables assumed to reflect executive functioning represent a distinct construct and that age-related effects on other types of cognitive functioning are reduced when measures of executive functioning are statistically controlled. These issues were investigated in a study involving 261 adults between 18 and 84 years of age. Although age-related effects on various cognitive abilities were substantially reduced after statistical control of the variance in measures hypothesized to represent executive functioning, there was only weak evidence for the existence of distinct constructs corresponding to executive functioning or to aspects of executive control concerned with inhibition, updating, or time sharing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Examining the locus of age effects on complex span tasks.

To investigate the locus of age effects on complex span tasks, the authors evaluated the contributions of working memory functions and processing speed. Age differences were found in measures of storage capacity, language processing speed, and lower level speed. Statistically controlling for each of these in hierarchical regressions substantially reduced, but did not eliminate, the complex span age effect. Accounting for lower level speed and storage, however, removed essentially the entire age effect, suggesting that both functions play important and independent roles. Additional evidence for the role of storage capacity was the absence of complex span age differences with span size calibrated to individual word span performance. Explanations for age differences based on inhibition and concurrent task performance were not supported. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Prose processing in young and old adults: Research on expertise and compensation.

For decades, psychologists have administered a variety of cognitive tasks to adults of all ages and backgrounds. One goal in this research was to answer such global cognitive developmental questions as: Is there inevitable, generalized decline in cognitive performance with advancing age? This article describes the rationale and results of a series of studies investigating the extent to which older adults can develop or maintain such levels of performance in a particular complex cognitive skill, i.e., reading and remembering prose passages. Given that many of the molecular components of these skills decline with advancing age, further improvement or maintenance may occur through a process of compensation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Asymmetric aging effects on semantic and phonological processes: Naming in the picture-word interference task.

In 2 experiments, participants named pictures while ignoring auditory word distractors. For pictures with homophone names (e.g., ball, distractors semantically related to the nondepicted meaning (e.g., prom) facilitated naming by top-down phonological connections for young but not for older adults. Slowing from unrelated distractors and facilitation from phonologically related distractors were age invariant except in distractors that were both semantically and phonologically related. Only distractors semantically related to the picture interfered more for older than younger adults. These results are inconsistent with age-linked deficits in inhibition of irrelevant information from either internal or external sources. Rather, aging affects priming transmission in a connectionist network with asymmetric effects on semantic and phonological connections involved in comprehension and production, respectively. (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)     

Binocular detection of masked patterns in young and old observers.

A visual pattern embedded in noise is detected appreciably better when the stimulus complex contains interocular cues (dichoptic condition) than when such cues are absent (binoptic condition). In a recent study (F. Speranza, G. Moraglia, & B. A. Schneider, 1995) the authors showed that the relative difference between binoptic and dichoptic thresholds does not change with age. However, older adults showed higher binoptic and dichoptic thresholds, thus suggesting an age-related difficulty with degraded stimulation. In this article the authors first replicated these findings and proceeded next to investigating whether age-related changes in processing efficiency, additive internal noise, and the spatial frequency bandwidth of the detecting filters could account, separately or concurrently, for the elevated thresholds in noise exhibited by the older adults. Results indicate that this increase is not attributable to age-related changes in filter bandwidth or internal noise. Rather, the findings can be explained in terms of a decrease in processing efficiency with age. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age-related equivalence and deficit in knowledge updating of cue effectiveness.

Knowledge updating involves learning about cue effectiveness based on task experience. Prior research has yielded inconsistent conclusions regarding age and knowledge updating. To resolve this inconsistency, the authors analyzed the effects of aging within a single paradigm. Participants studied cue-target associates during 2 study-test trials. Cues included rhyme cues and highly effective category cues. On each study-test trial, different items were presented, and participants predicted recall performance, received a cued recall test, and postdicted performance. Knowledge updating was operationalized as an improvement in the accuracy of predictive judgments across trials. An age deficit was evident in improvements in absolute accuracy, whereas age equivalence was evident in relative accuracy. Evidence suggested that deficient inferential processes contributed to the age deficit in knowledge updating. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

False recognition of abstract versus common objects in older and younger adults: Testing the semantic categorization account.

Older adults often demonstrate higher levels of false recognition than do younger adults. However, in experiments using novel shapes without preexisting semantic representations, this age-related elevation in false recognition was found to be greatly attenuated. Two experiments tested a semantic categorization account of these findings, examining whether older adults show especially heightened false recognition if the stimuli have preexisting semantic representations, such that semantic category information attenuates or truncates the encoding or retrieval of item-specific perceptual information. In Experiment 1, ambiguous shapes were presented with or without disambiguating semantic labels. Older adults showed higher false recognition when labels were present but not when labels were never presented. In Experiment 2, older adults showed higher false recognition for concrete but not abstract objects. The semantic categorization account was supported. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Older age, traumatic brain injury, and cognitive slowing: Some convergent and divergent findings.

Reaction time (RT) meta-analyses of cognitive slowing indicate that all stages of processing slow equivalently and task independently among both older adults (J. Cerella & S. Hale, 1994) and adults who have suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI; F. R. Ferraro, 1996). However, meta-analyses using both RT and P300 latency have revealed stage-specific and task-dependent changes among older individuals (T. R. Bashore, K. R. Ridderinkhof, & M. W. van der Molen, 1998). Presented in this article are a meta-analysis of the effect of TBI on processing speed, assessed using P300 latency and RT, and a qualitative review of the literature. They suggest that TBI induces differential slowing. Similarities in the effects of older age and TBI on processing speed are discussed and suggestions for future research on TBI-induced cognitive slowing are offered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Event understanding and memory in healthy aging and dementia of the Alzheimer type.

Segmenting ongoing activity into events is important for later memory of those activities. In the experiments reported in this article, older adults' segmentation of activity into events was less consistent with group norms than younger adults' segmentation, particularly for older adults diagnosed with mild dementia of the Alzheimer type. Among older adults, poor agreement with others' event segmentation was associated with deficits in recognition memory for pictures taken from the activity and memory for the temporal order of events. Impaired semantic knowledge about events also was associated with memory deficits. The data suggest that semantic knowledge about events guides encoding, facilitating later memory. To the extent that such knowledge or the ability to use it is impaired in aging and dementia, memory suffers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Understanding unfamiliar words: The influence of processing resources, vocabulary knowledge, and age": Clarification regarding McGinnis and Zelinski (2000).

Reports a clarification regarding the original article "Understanding unfamiliar words: The influence of processing resources, vocabulary knowledge, and age" by Debra McGinnis and Elizabeth M. Zelinski (Psychology and Aging, 2000[Jun], Vol 15[2], 335-350). Please note that the Action Editor for this article was Anderson D. Smith. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2000-03816-012.) In a 2-experiment design, the authors assessed the role of age and ability in defining unfamiliar words from context. In Experiment 1, 60 adults aged 18-33 and 60 adults aged 61-96 read passages with cues to the meaning of rare words, then defined them. Older adults produced fewer components of the words' meanings and were more likely to produce generalized interpretations of the precise meaning. In Experiment 2, 726 adults aged 30-97 selected definitions from 4 choices: the exact definition, a generalized interpretation of the exact definition, a generalized interpretation of the story, and definition irrelevant information from the story. Adults over age 75 selected fewer precise definitions and more generalized interpretations of the story than younger ones. Findings suggest that older adults may have special difficulties in deriving the meaning of unfamiliar words from context. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age-differential motivational consequences of optimization versus compensation focus in younger and older adults.

Four studies investigated age-related differences in goal focus in younger and older adults. Studies 1 and 2 confirmed the hypothesis that younger adults are more persistent when the same sensorimotor task offers possibility for optimizing performance than when the task requires counteracting a loss in performance (compensation). In contrast, older adults were more persistent in the compensation than in the optimization condition. Study 3 showed that the age-differential effects of goal focus on persistence were not simply due to perceiving the 2 conditions as easy versus difficult. Study 4 ruled out that the age differences were due to differences in the 2 tasks themselves. Taken together, the studies underscore the importance of situating motivational research into a life span context. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive resources, valence, and memory retrieval of emotional events in older adults.

In 2 studies with older adults, the authors investigated the effect of executive attention resources on the retrieval of emotional public events. Participants completed a battery of working memory tasks, as a measure of executive attention, and a battery of tasks assessing memory, as well as subjective experiences associated with the retrieval of remote public events. Participants also rated the valence of each public event story. The group-rated valence of the public event stories predicted retrieval and the quality of experiences associated with them, such that emotionally arousing events elicited the highest memory rates and the richest experiences. Furthermore, positive public events elicited the highest memory rates. Executive attention moderated only the relationship between event valence and how participants' associated memories are experienced at retrieval, such that superior executive attention resources predicted richer experiences associated with positive relative to neutral and negative stories. The current results extend previous findings on the effects of aging on emotion regulation, suggesting that cognitive control resources modulate subjective experiences associated with retrieved memories for remote real life events, but not memory retrieval itself. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Performance variability is related to change in cognition: Evidence from the Victoria Longitudinal Study.

Performance variability across repeated task administrations may be an important indicator of age-related cognitive functioning. In the present investigation, the authors examined whether age differences and change in inconsistency were related to 6-year (3 occasion) cognitive change. Inconsistency scores were computed from 4 reaction time tasks performed by 446 older adults (54-89 years). Replicating previous cross-sectional results, greater inconsistency was observed for older participants even after controlling for differences in response speed. New longitudinal results demonstrated (a) associations between inconsistency at baseline measurement and 6-year change in cognitive performance; (b) longitudinal change in inconsistency; and (c) intraindividual covariation between 6-year change in inconsistency and 6-year change in level of cognitive function. These findings support the view that performance variability serves as a marker of cognitive aging. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intraindividual Variability May Not Always Indicate Vulnerability in Elders' Cognitive Performance.

This study examined consistency of performance, or intraindividual variability, in older adults' performance on 3 measures of cognitive functioning: inductive reasoning, memory, and perceptual speed. Theoretical speculation has suggested that such intraindividual variability may signal underlying vulnerability or neurologic compromise. Thirty-six participants aged 60 and older completed self-administered cognitive assessments twice a day for 60 consecutive days. Intraindividual variability was not strongly correlated among the 3 cognitive measures, but, over the course of the study, intraindividual variability was strongly intercorrelated within a task. Higher average performance on a measure was associated with greater performance variability, and follow-up analyses revealed that a higher level of intraindividual variability is positively associated with the magnitude of a person's practice-related gain on a particular measure. The authors argue that both adaptive (practice-related) and maladaptive (inconsistency-related) intraindividual variability may exist within the same individuals over time. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)