scholarly journals Cognitive Aging and Tests of Rationality

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanghyuk Park ◽  
Clintin P. Davis-Stober ◽  
Hope K. Snyder ◽  
William Messner ◽  
Michel Regenwetter
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Cognitive Aging ◽  
Bayesian Model ◽  
Rational Decision ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Decision Strategies ◽  
Hierarchical Bayesian Analysis ◽  
Rational Decision Making ◽  
Weak Evidence ◽  
Transitive Preference

Abstract We investigated whether older adults are more likely than younger adults to violate a foundational property of rational decision making, the axiom of transitive preference. Our experiment consisted of two groups, older (ages 60-75; 21 participants) and younger (ages 18-30; 20 participants) adults. We used Bayesian model selection to investigate whether individuals were better described via (transitive) weak order-based decision strategies or (possibly intransitive) lexicographic semiorder decision strategies. We found weak evidence for the hypothesis that older adults violate transitivity at a higher rate than younger adults. At the same time, a hierarchical Bayesian analysis suggests that, in this study, the distribution of decision strategies across individuals is similar for both older and younger adults.

Slow Down You’re Moving Too Fast

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annie Lang ◽  
Nancy Schwartz ◽  
Sharon Mayell
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Cognitive Aging ◽  
Attention And Memory ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Media Messages ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
The Difference

The study reported here compared how younger and older adults processed the same set of media messages which were selected to vary on two factors, arousing content and valence. Results showed that older and younger adults had similar arousal responses but different patterns of attention and memory. Older adults paid more attention to all messages than did younger adults. However, this attention did not translate into greater memory. Older and younger adults had similar levels of memory for slow-paced messages, but younger adults outperformed older adults significantly as pacing increased, and the difference was larger for arousing compared with calm messages. The differences found are in line with predictions made based on the cognitive-aging literature.

scholarly journals Discovering Rational Heuristics for Risky Choice

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Krueger ◽  
Frederick Callaway ◽  
Sayan Gul ◽  
Tom Griffiths ◽  
Falk Lieder
Keyword(s):  
Risky Choice ◽  
Behavioral Experiment ◽  
Cognitive Resources ◽  
Machine Learning Method ◽  
Learning Method ◽  
Rational Decision ◽  
Decision Strategies ◽  
Rational Decision Making ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Order Of Magnitude

For computationally limited agents such as humans, perfectly rational decision-making is almost always out of reach. Instead, people may rely on computationally frugal heuristics that usually yield good outcomes. Although previous research has identified many such heuristics, discovering good heuristics and predicting when they will be used remains challenging. Here, we present a machine learning method that identifies the best heuristics to use in any given situation. To demonstrate the generalizability and accuracy of our method, we compare the strategies it discovers against those used by people across a wide range of multi-alternative risky choice environments in a behavioral experiment that is an order of magnitude larger than any previous experiments of its type. Our method rediscovered known heuristics, identifying them as rational strategies for specific environments, and discovered novel heuristics that had been previously overlooked. Our results show that people adapt their decision strategies to the structure of the environment and generally make good use of their limited cognitive resources, although they tend to collect too little information and their strategy choices do not always fully exploit the structure of the environment.

scholarly journals Cognitive aging and verbal labeling in continuous visual memory

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (7) ◽  
pp. 1196-1213
Author(s):  
Alicia Forsberg ◽  
Wendy Johnson ◽  
Robert H. Logie
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Cognitive Aging ◽  
Visual Memory ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Healthy Older Adults ◽  
Age Related

Abstract The decline of working memory (WM) is a common feature of general cognitive decline, and visual and verbal WM capacity appear to decline at different rates with age. Visual material may be remembered via verbal codes or visual traces, or both. Souza and Skóra, Cognition, 166, 277–297 (2017) found that labeling boosted memory in younger adults by activating categorical visual long-term memory (LTM) knowledge. Here, we replicated this and tested whether it held in healthy older adults. We compared performance in silence, under instructed overt labeling (participants were asked to say color names out loud), and articulatory suppression (repeating irrelevant syllables to prevent labeling) in the delayed estimation paradigm. Overt labeling improved memory performance in both age groups. However, comparing the effect of overt labeling and suppression on the number of coarse, categorical representations in the two age groups suggested that older adults used verbal labels subvocally more than younger adults, when performing the task in silence. Older adults also appeared to benefit from labels differently than younger adults. In younger adults labeling appeared to improve visual, continuous memory, suggesting that labels activated visual LTM representations. However, for older adults, labels did not appear to enhance visual, continuous representations, but instead boosted memory via additional verbal (categorical) memory traces. These results challenged the assumption that visual memory paradigms measure the same cognitive ability in younger and older adults, and highlighted the importance of controlling differences in age-related strategic preferences in visual memory tasks.

scholarly journals Age-related Changes in Ongoing Thought Relate to External Context and Individual Cognition

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 967-967
Author(s):  
Adam Turnbull ◽  
Giulia Poerio ◽  
Feng Lin ◽  
Jonathan Smallwood
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Cognitive Aging ◽  
Experience Sampling ◽  
Principal Component ◽  
Lifestyle Changes ◽  
Aging Research ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Age Related Changes

Abstract Understanding how age-related changes in cognition manifest in the real world is an important goal for aging research. One means of capturing these changes involves “experience sampling” participant’s self-reported thoughts as they go about their daily lives. Previous research using this method has shown age-related changes in ongoing thought: e.g., older adults have fewer thoughts unrelated to the here-and-now. However, it is currently unclear how these changes reflect cognitive aging or lifestyle changes. 78 younger adults and 35 older adults rated their thought contents along 20 dimensions and the difficulty of their current activity in their daily lives. They also performed cognitive tasks in the laboratory. In a set of exploratory analyses using Principal Component Analysis (PCA), we found that older adults spent more time thinking positive, wanted thoughts, particularly in demanding contexts, suggesting they may use different strategies to regulate their emotions. In line with previous research, older adults spent less time mind wandering about their future selves. Past-related thought related to episodic memory differently in older and younger adults. Additionally, PCA analyses performed separately in older and younger adults showed high similarity to an analysis performed on the combined sample, suggesting a similar structure to ongoing daily life thought in older and younger adults. These findings inform the use of experience sampling to understand cognitive aging, highlighting the need to consider content along multiple dimensions as well as the context in which thoughts are reported when analyzing aging ongoing thought.

scholarly journals Effects of Age Differences in Memory Formation on Neural Mechanisms of Consolidation and Retrieval

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Myriam C. Sander ◽  
Yana Fandakova ◽  
Markus Werkle-Bergner
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Cognitive Aging ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Memory Decline ◽  
Memory Processing ◽  
Memory Impairments ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Memory Network

Episodic memory decline is a hallmark of cognitive aging and a multifaceted phenomenon. We review studies that target age differences across different memory processing stages, i.e., from encoding to retrieval. The available evidence cumulates in the proposition that older adults form memories of lower quality than younger adults, which has negative downstream consequences for later processing stages. We argue that low memory quality in combination with age-related neural decline of key regions of the episodic memory network puts older adults in a double jeopardy situation that finally results in broader memory impairments in older compared to younger adults.

scholarly journals Decisions from experience: adaptive information search and choice in younger and older adults

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Spaniol ◽  
Pete Wegier
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Information Search ◽  
Cognitive Aging ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Association Learning ◽  
Desirable Outcome ◽  
Dopamine Hypothesis ◽  
Risky Option

In real-world decision making, choice outcomes, and their probabilities are often not known a priori but must be learned from experience. The dopamine hypothesis of cognitive aging predicts that component processes of experience-based decision making (information search and stimulus–reward association learning) decline with age. Many existing studies in this domain have used complex neuropsychological tasks that are not optimal for testing predictions about specific cognitive processes. Here we used an experimental sampling paradigm with real monetary payoffs that provided separate measures of information search and choice for gains and losses. Compared with younger adults, older adults sought less information about uncertain risky options. However, like younger adults, older participants also showed evidence of adaptive decision making. When the desirable outcome of the risky option was rare (p = 0.10 or 0.20), both age groups engaged in more information search and made fewer risky choices, compared with when the desirable outcome of the risky option was frequent (p = 0.80 or 0.90). Furthermore, loss options elicited more sampling and greater modulation of risk taking, compared with gain options. Overall, these findings support predictions of the dopamine hypothesis of cognitive aging, but they also highlight the need for additional research into the interaction of age and valence (gain vs. loss) on experience-based choice.

Age Differences in the Processing of Context Information

2014 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 202-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Schmitt ◽  
Maren C. Wolff ◽  
Nicola K. Ferdinand ◽  
Jutta Kray
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Cognitive Aging ◽  
Conflict Detection ◽  
Behavioral Data ◽  
Control Mode ◽  
Context Information ◽  
Reactive Control ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
High Performing

The dual mechanisms of control theory (DMC; Braver & Barch, 2002 ) assumes that age-related changes in the temporal structure of context processing underlie age differences in numerous cognitive control tasks. Younger adults usually exhibit a proactive control mode, characterized by cue-related context updating, while older adults show a reactive control mode, updating information when interference is detected. This study aimed at determining whether age differences in electrophysiological correlates of context updating in a pro-and reactive manner are independent of individual differences in task performance. To this end, younger and older adults were split into four groups according to their updating efficiency in behavioral data. Nineteen younger and 18 older adults completed a modified AX-Continuous-Performance Task ( Lenartowicz, Escobedo-Quiroz, & Cohen, 2010 ) in which correct responses to probes were either dependent (c-dep) or independent (c-indep) on a preceding contextual cue. Analysis of the behavioral data showed no differences in context updating when performance was matched, that is, between low performing younger and high performing older adults. However, low performing younger adults showed larger cue-locked parietal P3b amplitudes on c-dep than c-indep trials, indicating c-dep trials to require context updating to a larger extent, while high performing older adults exhibited a specific control strategy and continuously updated context information, as reflected in comparable P3b amplitudes on c-dep and c-indep trials. The persistent age effect in the P3b when controlling for performance differences suggests context updating to be fundamental to cognitive aging. High performing in contrast to low performing older adults also showed a larger negative N450 to ambiguous probes on c-dep trials associated with conflict detection. According to the DMC, this finding suggests late conflict detection at the time interference is detected, indicative of a reactive control style particular in high performing elderly.

scholarly journals Mind Your Language: New Insights on Memory and Cognitive Aging Research Through Real-Life Methods

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 623-623
Author(s):  
Maximilian Haas ◽  
Alexandra Hering ◽  
Matthias Kliegel
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Speech Production ◽  
Prospective Memory ◽  
Cognitive Aging ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
Aging Research ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
The Past ◽  
Marked Decline

Abstract In the past decades, the so-called “age - prospective memory paradox”– a phenomenon comparing prospective memory (PM) performance in and outside the lab – has challenged the classical assumption that older adults necessarily evidence a marked decline in PM functioning. In our study, we want to extend established methods for measuring memory through arising technologies, such as the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR; Mehl, 2017). Over the course of three days, 60 younger adults (18-32 years) and 45 older adults (60-82 years) completed an ambulatory assessment with the EAR in order to detect spontaneous speech production related to memory and memory failures. Results reveal that younger and older adults do not differ in the total number of utterances related to different facets of memory and cognition. However, when it comes to failures, older adults talk significantly less about PM failures than younger adults. Possible explanations for these findings will be discussed.

scholarly journals A database of general knowledge question performance in older adults

2021 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 415-429
Author(s):  
Jennifer H. Coane ◽  
Sharda Umanath
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Older Adult ◽  
Cognitive Aging ◽  
Early Adulthood ◽  
Cued Recall ◽  
General Knowledge ◽  
Choice Data ◽  
Aging Research ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Acquisition Processes

AbstractGeneral knowledge questions are used across a variety of research and clinical settings to measure cognitive processes such as metacognition, knowledge acquisition, retrieval processes, and intelligence. Existing norms only report performance in younger adults, rendering them of limited utility for cognitive aging research because of well-documented differences in semantic memory and knowledge as a function of age. Specifically, older adults typically outperform younger adults in tasks assessing retrieval of information from the knowledge base. Here we present older adult performance on 421 general knowledge questions across a range of difficulty levels. Cued recall data, including data on the phenomenology of retrieval failures, and multiple-choice data are available. These norms will allow researchers to identify questions that are not likely to be known by older adult participants to examine learning or acquisition processes, or to select questions within a range of marginal accessibility, for example. Comparisons with young adult data from prior databases confirms previous findings of greater knowledge in older adults and indicates there is preservation of knowledge from early adulthood into older adulthood.

Neural Recruitment and Cognitive Aging: Two Hemispheres Are Better Than One, Especially as You Age

1999 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 494-500 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia A. Reuter-Lorenz ◽  
Louise Stanczak ◽  
Andrea C. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Cognitive Aging ◽  
Visual Fields ◽  
Complex Task ◽  
Brain Areas ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Age Related Changes ◽  
Better Than

Several neuroimaging studies have reported that older adults show weaker activations in some brain areas together with stronger activations in other areas, compared with younger adults performing the same task. This pattern may reflect neural recruitment that compensates for age-related neural declines. The recruitment hypothesis was tested in a visual laterality study that investigated age differences in the efficiency of bihemispheric processing. Letter-matching tasks of varying complexity were performed under two conditions: (a) matching letters projected to the same visual field (hemisphere) and (b) matching letters projected to opposite visual fields (hemispheres). As predicted by the recruitment hypothesis, older adults generally performed better in the bilateral than unilateral condition, whereas younger adults showed this pattern only for the most complex task. We discuss the relation between these results and neuroimaging evidence for recruitment, and the relevance of the present bihemispheric advantage to other evidence for age-related changes in interhemispheric transfer.

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