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.

The Effects of Age and Gender on Lipreading Abilities

2007 ◽  
Vol 18 (10) ◽  
pp. 883-892 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy Tye-Murray ◽  
Mitchell S. Sommers ◽  
Brent Spehar
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Percent Correct ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Males And Females ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Las Mujeres ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Older Males

Age-related declines for many sensory and cognitive abilities are greater for males than for females. The primary purpose of the present investigation was to consider whether age-related changes in lipreading abilities are similar for men and women by comparing the lipreading abilities of separate groups of younger and older adults. Older females, older males, younger females and younger males completed vision-only speech recognition tests of: (1) 13 consonants in a vocalic /i/-C-/i/ environment; (2) words in a carrier phrase; and (3) meaningful sentences. In addition to percent correct performance, consonant data were analyzed for performance within viseme categories. The results suggest that while older adults do not lipread as well as younger adults, the difference between older and younger participants was comparable across gender. We also found no differences in the lipreading abilities of males and females, regardless of stimulus type (i.e., consonants, words, sentences), a finding that differs from some reports by previous investigators (e.g., Dancer, Krain, Thompson, Davis, & Glenn, 1994). El deterioro relacionado con la edad de muchas habilidades sensoriales y cognitivas es mayor para los hombres que para las mujeres. El propósito primario de la presente investigación fue considerar si los cambios relacionados con la edad en la habilidad de leer los labios eran similares para hombre y mujeres, comparando las habilidades de lectura labial de grupos separados de adultos jóvenes y viejos. Mujeres viejas, hombres viejos, mujeres jóvenes y hombres jóvenes completaron pruebas de reconocimiento del lenguaje únicamente por medio de la visión de: (1) 13 consonantes en un ambiente vocálico /i/-C-/i/; (2) de palabras en una frase portadora; y (3) de frases significativas. Además del porcentaje correcto de desempeño, los datos de las consonantes se analizaron en cuanto a desempeño dentro de las categorías de visemas. Los resultados sugieren que mientras los adultos más viejos no leen los labios tan bien como los adultos más jóvenes, las diferencias entre participantes más viejos y más jóvenes fueron comparables entre los géneros. Tampoco encontramos diferencias en las habilidades de lectura labial de hombres y mujeres, sin importar el tipo de estímulo (p.e., consonantes, palabras, frases), un hallazgo que difiere con algunos reportes de investigadores previos (p.e., Dancer, Krain, Thompson, Davis, & Glenn, 1994).

scholarly journals The Association between Age-Related Cognitive Changes and Obstacle Avoidance: Focusing on Memory-Guided Limb Movements

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryota Sakurai ◽  
Kentaro Kodama ◽  
Yu Ozawa ◽  
Frederico Pieruccini-Faria ◽  
Kimi Estela Kobayashi-Cuya ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Obstacle Avoidance ◽  
Safety Margin ◽  
Cognitive Test ◽  
Limb Movements ◽  
Cognitive Changes ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Foot Kinematics ◽  
Age Related ◽  
The Difference

Abstract An association between cognitive impairment and tripping over obstacles during locomotion in older adults has been suggested. However, owing to its memory-guided movement, whether this is more pronounced in the trailing limb is poorly known. We examined the age-related changes in stepping-over, focusing on trailing limb movements, and their association with cognitive performance. Age-related change in obstacle avoidance was examined by comparing the foot kinematics of 105 older and 103 younger adults when stepping over an obstacle. The difference in clearance between the leading limb and trailing limb (Δ clearance) was calculated to determine the degree of decrement in the clearance of the trailing limb. A cognitive test battery was used to evaluate cognitive function among older adults for assessing their association with Δ clearance. Older adults showed a significantly lower clearance of the trailing limb than younger adults, resulting in a greater Δ clearance. The significant correlations between greater Δ clearance and scores of Montreal Cognitive Assessment and delayed recall of the Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised Logical Memory. Our results suggest that memory functions may contribute to the control of trailing limb movements, which can secure a safety margin to avoid stumbling on an obstacle, during obstacle avoidance locomotion.

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 Adult age differences in frequency estimations of happy and angry faces

2014 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 266-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jana Nikitin ◽  
Alexandra M. Freund
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Negative Events ◽  
High Likelihood ◽  
Social Signals ◽  
Positive Events ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Adult Age ◽  
Social Events ◽  
The Difference

With increasing age, the ratio of gains to losses becomes more negative, which is reflected in expectations that positive events occur with a high likelihood in young adulthood, whereas negative events occur with a high likelihood in old age. Little is known about expectations of social events. Given that younger adults are motivated to establish new social relations, they should be vigilant towards signals of opportunities for socializing, such as smiling faces. Older adults, who are particularly motivated to avoid negative encounters, should be vigilant towards negative social signals, such as angry faces. Thus, younger adults should overestimate the occurrence of positive social signals, whereas older adults should overestimate the occurrence of negative social signals. Two studies (Study 1: n = 91 younger and n = 89 older adults; Study 2: n = 50 younger and n = 50 older adults) partly supported these hypotheses using frequency estimates of happy and angry faces. Although both younger and older adults overestimated the frequency of angry compared to happy faces, the difference was significantly more pronounced for older adults.

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.

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 Eye movements reveal a similar positivity effect in Chinese and UK older adults

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (11) ◽  
pp. 1921-1929
Author(s):  
Jingxin Wang ◽  
Fang Xie ◽  
Liyuan He ◽  
Katie L Meadmore ◽  
Kevin B Paterson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Factor Analysis ◽  
Eye Movements ◽  
Bayes Factor ◽  
Attention And Memory ◽  
Emotional Information ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Positivity Effect ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Related Increase

The “positivity effect” (PE) reflects an age-related increase in the preference for positive over negative information in attention and memory. The present experiment investigated whether Chinese and UK participants produce a similar PE. In one experiment, we presented pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral pictures simultaneously and participants decided which picture they liked or disliked on a third of trials, respectively. We recorded participants’ eye movements during this task and compared time looking at, and memory for, pictures. The results suggest that older but not younger adults from both China and UK participant groups showed a preference to focus on and remember pleasant pictures, providing evidence of a PE in both cultures. Bayes Factor analysis supported these observations. These findings are consistent with the view that older people preferentially focus on positive emotional information, and that this effect is observed cross-culturally.

scholarly journals Aging and the Perception of Motion-Defined Form

Perception ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Farley Norman ◽  
Karli N. Sanders ◽  
Hannah K. Shapiro ◽  
Ashley E. Peterson
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Perceptual Grouping ◽  
Target Stimulus ◽  
Stimulus Element ◽  
Target Element ◽  
Single Experiment ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Global Shape ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Effect Of Age

A single experiment required 26 younger and older adults to discriminate global shape as defined only by differences in the speed of stimulus element rotation. Detection of the target shape required successful perceptual grouping by common fate. A considerable adverse effect of age was found: In order to perceive the target and discriminate its shape with a d’ value of 1.5, the older observers needed target element rotational speeds that were 23.4% faster than those required for younger adults. In addition, as the difference between the rotation speeds of the background and target stimulus elements increased, the performance of the older observers improved at a rate that was only about half of that exhibited by the younger observers. The results indicate that while older adults can perceive global shape defined by similarity (and differences) in rotational speed, their abilities are nevertheless significantly compromised.

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.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document