Adult development and aging: Chapter 6

Sustained attention

*3rd type of attentional task *This type of task requires the participant to be on guard for a change in a stimulus array -Ex: A typical experiment requires participants to watch a computer screen as a series of stimuli are presented and told only when the target stimulus appears (The x game we did in class) *Older adults typically have more difficulty on these types of tasks than do younger adults. *Although older adults are typically slower when processing information from visual displays, they can remember the location of an item presented in a visual display and may even be more efficient at this task than younger adults.

Central executive

*Allocates cognitive resources -Responsible for deciding how to allocate cognitive resources to a particular task.

Phonological loop

*Auditory memory: -Memory for what you hear. *Information can be rehearsed by repeating the material over and over again "in your head" such as when you try to remember a phone number and have no way to write it down.

Explicit memory

*Consciously attempt to recall

Episodic memory

*Events -Refers to memory for past events.

Memory cure

*Gingko Biloba's -No significant improvement in over 3000 adults ranging in ages from the 70s to the 90s.

Health and memory

*Health may play a role in congnition through the route of metabolic factors: -people with metabolic syndrome at risk for Alzheimer's -Impaired glucose tolerance associated with a clear relationship to cogntive functioning in normal aging individuals. -Older adults with type 2 diabetes are more likely to experience slowing of psychomotor speed as well as declines in executive functioning. *One possible route through which metabolic factors can affect psychomotor slowing and memory involves insulin growth factor-1 (IGF-1) -women with low levels of IGF-1 showed slower decreases with age in cognitive functioning than women with high levels of this substance.

Dual task (divided attention task)

*In which the individual os given information from 2 input sources and must attend to both sources at once to identify a target. *Most people are disadvantaged when it comes to multitasking. *Disadvantages of multitasking increase progressively with age. *Older adults appear to compensate for attentional deficits under multitasking conditions by shifting activation of regions of the brains involved in attentional processing.

Semantic memory

*Knowledge -Memory for word meanings and the storehouse of factual information.

Attentional resources theory

*Less energy available for cognitive operations *Aging reduces available cognitive resources.

Driving and aging

*Media reports portray old drivers in a negative light and although some are experiencing attentional deficits, they have other abilities and resources that they use to compensate for these deficits *Given that the reaction time is greater for older adults, they may be particularly disadvantage when they need to evaluate a complex situation in which they have to make a quick decision. *According to the National highway traffic safety administration, in the US, -The highest fatality rates: 27-100,000 are for 16-25 year olds. -Lower fatality rate: 18 per 100,000 are 65 and older population. *Drivers under the age of 25 are also far more likely than older adults to drink and drive (21-24 is the highest drinking and driving age group) -Number 1 cause of death in the US *Older adults are more likely to be involved in a crash at an intersection when making a left hand turn, in US *Driving provides a perfect example of the importance of adopting a biopsychosocial perspective to understand the aging process: 1) Biology changes vision and reaction time 2) Psychology (Internal distractions causing anxiety) 3) Sociocultural (requirement to live independently in the US/social isolation)

Procedural memory

*Nonverbal -This is your knowledge of how to perform (without instructions) physical activities such as sewing on a button, riding a bike. *Variant of implicit: acquired unintentionally , recall information not available to conscious awareness.

Aerobic exercie and memory

*Older people who are aerobically fit are also more mentally fit *Moderate to high intensity strength training contributes to increased information processing and executive functioning. *Strength training through weight lifiting can also improve memory performance of older adults.

Information processing

*Perspective that regards the cognitive functioning of humans as comparable to the functioning of a computer. -The "data" from experiences enter into the brain through various sensory routes, where they progress through a series of stages and analysis. *Studies of information processing in adulthood focus on whether and how the aging process alters the efficiency and effectiveness of these analytical phases.

Context processing deficiency

*Proposes that the ability to judge the context of information during situations such as the sustained attention task becomes less efficient in later adulthood. *Fewer resources to devote to a task when constantly reminding self of context. *Aging reduces the ability to take context into account. *Age differences in continuous attention performance suggest a unique contribution of context processing difficulties.

Memory training studies

*Providing training intended to improve the memories of older adults also has the benefit of increasing feelings in the individuals self-efficacy. *Older adults appear to suffer deleterious changes, but these changes are neither universal nor irreversibly negative.

Memory self efficacy

*Refers to the confidence you have in your memory; specifically, the degree to which you feel that you can successfully complete a memory task. *People are affected by the "implicit theory" about aging and memory: namely, that memory functioing suffers an inevitable decline in later life.

Episodic buffer

*Retrieving information from long term memory -responsible for recalling information you already have within long-term memory by bringing it temporarily into working memory. *Term episodic memory refers to memory for past events.

Long term memory

*Several minutes to life 1) Episodic 2) Semantic 3) Procedural 4) Explicit 5) Source

Source memory

*State where you saw or heard information. -Useful when you are trying to remember which of your friends said she would give you concert tickets.

Stress and memory

*Stress can interfere with memory performance among older adults. -more than 300 vets filled diaries about stress and memory failures which proved that stress does impact memory *Interference of emotions with memory performance also happens. *Studies of stress have found that people who experience stress peform significantly poorer regardless of age. *Sliwinski and colleagues maintain that preoccupation with stress occupies attentional resources that could otherwise be devoted to the memory task.

Inhibitory deficit hypothesis

*Suggests that aging reduces the individual's ability to inhibit or tune out irrelevant information -limit distractions, like preoccupation with memory loss *This theory is widely supported by a variety of studies based on psychological and electrophysiological methods. -Studies of event related potentials (ERPs), which measure the brains electrical activity in response to stimuli, show that older adults are less able to block out distracting stimuli when completing a task. -Their pattern of response suggests that there are deficits in the prefrontal cortex, the area in the brain involved in the control of inhibiting irrelevant information. *This hypothesis implies that middle-ages and older adults focus most effectively when distractions are kept to a minimum. -their own concern over how they are performing may cause them to perform even more poorly than they otherwise would. *People who are worried about the aging of their cognitive abilities may be more likely to engage in identity accommodation-the "over the hill" mentality-a process that will contribute to poorer performance.

Working memory

*The part of memory that keeps information temporarily available and active -Phonological loop -Visuospatial scratch pad -Episodic buffer -Central executive *This reflects activity in the hippocampus *Structural changes in areas of the brain involved in working memory are compensated by heightened activation of the prefrontal cortex.

Reaction time

*The time taken to respond is recorded 1) Simple reaction time involves viewing one stimulus at a time 2) Choice reaction time tasks one must select from an array 3) Cuing, in which participants are given a prompt to direct their attention to a particular region of the screen *Despite increasing variability in reaction times with age, overall, the net effect of the changes are negative across adulthood, particularly for choice reaction time tasks.

Psychomotor speed

*Theories about changes in the overall quality of information processing in adulthood are based on studies of psychomotor speed. *This is the amount of time it takes to process a signal, prepare a response, and then execute that response. *Researchers believe that psychomotor speed reflects the integrity of the CNS.

Visuospatial scratch pad

*Visual memory -Such as when you are trying to remember the route home from a store you have visited once by imagining it in your mind.

Theories of attention and aging

1) Attentional resources theory 2) Inhibitory deficit hypothesis 3) Context processing deficiency

Memory health realted behaviors

1) Avoid smoking 2) Dietary control 3) Maintain physical activity 4) Avoid stress 5) Practice using memory skills

Types of attentional tasks

1) Dual task (divided attention task) 2) Sustained attention 3) Inhibitory attention task *Studies suggest that people become less efficient in the use of attentional processes as they get older

Abilities that decline:

1) Episodic memory 2) Source memory 3) False memory 4) Tip-of-the-tongue 5) Prospective memory

Diet and memory when aging:

1) Fish is "brain food" -Omega-3 fatty acids -rate of cognitive decline in individuals who consumed one or more fish meals a week was reduced by 10% to 13% per year *2) SES plays a role in diet 3) Vitamins: -B12 -B-6 -Folate -Vitamin D -Flavonoids (fruits and veggies, red wine and dark chocolate, *Homocysteine, an amino acid found in the blood and acquired mainly from eating meat, is negatively related to memory performance.

Abilities that do not decline

1) Flashbulb memory 2) Semantic memory 3) Procedural memory 4) Implicit memory 5) Autobiographical memory

Relationships among identity self-efficacy, memory control beliefs, and stereotype threat:

1) Higher identity accomodation related to lower memory control beliefs 2) Higher self efficacy related to higher performance 3) Higher memory control beliefs related to better strategy use leading to better memory 4) Stereotype threat reduces memory performance

Memory performance factors

1) Identity process theory 2) Memory self-efficacy 3) Stereotype-threat 4) Memory controllability

Driving problems

1) Independence and autonomy 2) Social isolation 3) Prejudice

Other types of long-term memory

1) Remote 2) Autobiographical 3) Prospective

Inhibitory task

In which the individual must deliberately suppress one response in order to perform another. -The purpose of this type of task is to determine whether older adults are able to ignore aspects of a stimulus that are irrelevant. *Stroop test -In which you are told to name the color of ink in which a word in printed.

Attention

Involves the ability to focus or concentrate on a portion of experience while ignoring other features of that experience, to be able to shift that focus as demanded by the situation, and to be able to coordinate information from multiple sources. -Once your attention is focused on a piece of information, you are then able to perform further cognitive operations, such as those involving memory or problem solving. *ADD -may have difficulty learning new information or performing more than one task at a time -the attentional deficits associated with the normal aging process can involve deficits of a similar nature, particularly when complex decisions must be made quickly.

Stereotype threat

Is a concept drawn from research on the standardized test performance of African Americans suggesting that people perform in ways consistent with negative stereotypes of the group to whoch they see themselves as belonging to. *Older person's self-identification as "old" contributes to lower memory test scores. *Although through identity assimilation older adults can overcome stereotype threat, it is difficult to be impervious to society's negative views about aging and memory. *Individual differencesin response to threat may mediate the way that older individuals react to negative information about aging and memory. *There is no way to really know just how much stereotype threat could account for many of the findings on aging and memory.

Scaffolding theory

Older adults are able to recruit alternate neural circuits as needed by task demands to make up for losses suffered elsewhere.

Role of Identity in memory performance and aging:

People who fall prey to the "over the hill" form of identity accomodation are more likely to succumb to society's negative stereotypes about aging and suffer more sever age effects than people who are able to maintain a positive view of their abilities using identity assimilation.

Remote memory

Recall information from distant past.

Autobiographical memory

Recall information from own past

Memory controllability

Refers to beliefs about the effects of the aging process on memory, such as the extent to which the individual believes that memory decline is inevitable with age. *If people believe that they can control their memory, then they are more likely to take advantage of the strategies to ensure they actually do achieve higher performance.

General slowing hypothesis

The increase in reaction time reflects a general decline of information processing speed within the nervous system of the aging individual.

Age-complexity hypothesis

Which proposes that through slowing of central processes in the nervous system, age differences increase as tasks become more complex and processing resources are stretched more and more to their limit

Prospective memory

recall events to be performed in the future -Event-based -Time-based