The Influence of Verbatim Versus Gist Formatting on Younger and Older Adults’ Information Acquisition

Abstract It is well-established that pre-decisional information seeking decreases with age (Mata & Nunes, 2010). However, it is still unknown whether age differences in information acquisition are influenced by the type of information provided. Fuzzy-trace theory suggests that decision makers prefer gist-based over verbatim-based processing, and that this preference increases across the lifespan. Therefore, we hypothesized that age differences arise when presenting participants with verbatim details (such as exact numbers) but not gist information (such as ”extremely poor” or “good”). In a lab-based experiment, 68 younger adults and 66 older adults completed a gist-based and a verbatim-based search task before making health insurance choices. Younger and older adults reviewed similar amounts of information in either condition. In line with Fuzzy-trace theory, however, older adults sought more information when presented with gist rather than verbatim information. The role of age-associated covariates and implications for decision-making will be discussed.

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AGE DIFFERENCES IN POLITICAL ENGAGEMENT: ROLE OF SELF-RELEVANCE

Innovation in Aging ◽

10.1093/geroni/igz038.2889 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽

pp. S785-S785

Author(s):

Tze Kiu Wong ◽

Helene H Fung

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Collective Action ◽

Older People ◽

Age Differences ◽

Political Behavior ◽

Social Issues ◽

Political Engagement ◽

Political Discussion ◽

Younger Adults

Abstract Previous studies usually found that older people are less politically engaged than younger adults, especially when considering political behavior other than voting. The current study extends the Selective Engagement hypothesis (Hess, 2014) to political engagement. 81 younger adults and 79 older adults rated 8 issues on self-relevance and their willingness to engage in political discussion, arguments and collective action on each issue. The predicted moderating effect of self-relevance was not found, but older people indeed are more willing to discuss (B = 0.07, p = 0.027) and argue with others on more self-relevant issues (B = 0.06, p = 0.031). Perceived cost of collective action was found to be a moderator, such that self-relevance was less important than other factors for high-cost actions (B = -0.016, p = 0.013). The current research sheds light on potential ways to increase older adults’ engagement in social issues.

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EXPLORING AGE, GENDER, AND RELATIONSHIP CLOSENESS DIFFERENCES IN RESPONSES TO IGNORED DISRESPECT

Innovation in Aging ◽

10.1093/geroni/igz038.1118 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽

pp. S305-S305

Author(s):

Jenessa C Steele ◽

Amanda Chappell ◽

Rachel Scott

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Young Adults ◽

Age Differences ◽

Negative Emotions ◽

Age Groups ◽

Emotional Responses ◽

Younger Adults ◽

Relationship Closeness ◽

Close Condition

Abstract Emotional responses to disrespect tend to be negative (Hawkins, 2015). Little is known about how responses to disrespect vary across age groups and relationship closeness. It is unknown whether older adults have more emotional protection against disrespectful experiences, or are more deeply affected due to relationship closeness. Overall, we might expect that older adults react less negatively to disrespect compared to young adults, as they are more-skilled emotion regulators (Carstensen, 1991; English & Carstensen, 2014). We aimed to explore if, and under which circumstances, older adults are more or less sensitive to disrespect compared to younger adults. Three hundred participants responded to six scenarios illustrating ignored disrespect. Participants were randomly assigned to close or distant relationship disrespect scenarios. Relationship closeness was first determined by requesting participants identify a person in each layer of Kahn and Antonucci’s (1980) Social Convoy Model. Identified names were then automatically inserted into the six scenarios. Emotional responses and sensitivity to each scenario were recorded. Participants in the close condition reported more sensitivity to disrespect and negative emotions than participants in the distant condition. Females reported more sensitivity to disrespect and negative emotions than males. We did not find overwhelming support for age differences in responses to disrespect. A single scenario indicated younger participants more sensitive to disrespect than older participants. Findings suggest it is more hurtful to be disrespected by someone close to you and females may be more sensitive to disrespect than males. More research investigating the role of age in disrespect is needed.

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Information Avoidance in Decision Making: Do the Reasons Vary by Age?

Innovation in Aging ◽

10.1093/geroni/igaa057.1172 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽

pp. 364-364

Author(s):

Stephanie Deng ◽

Julia Nolte ◽

Corinna Loeckenhoff

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Decision Making ◽

Age Differences ◽

Information Seeking ◽

Relevant Information ◽

Medical Decision ◽

Younger Adults ◽

Adult Lifespan ◽

Information Avoidance ◽

Highly Correlated

Abstract Older adults make up the majority of the U.S. patient population and age differences in information avoidance have potential implications for their ability to participate in informed medical decision making. Meta-analytic evidence suggests that older adults seek less information before making a decision than younger adults do (Mata & Nunes, 2010). However, age differences in explicit information avoidance have yet to be quantified. We hypothesized that older adults would avoid decision-relevant information more strongly than younger adults do. We also examined the self-reported reasons for information avoidance and hypothesized that older adults would express more concern about unwanted information influencing their affect (Reed & Carstensen, 2012) and decision preferences (Mather, 2006), both of which are known predictors of information avoidance (Woolley & Risen, 2018). To test these assumptions, we conducted a pre-registered online study involving three different health-related decision scenarios. For each scenario, an adult lifespan sample (N=195, Mage=52.95, 50% female, 71% non-Hispanic White) chose to either receive or avoid information. Responses were highly correlated across scenarios and results were pooled into a single avoidance measure. Analyses indicated that concerns about consequences for decision preferences positively predicted decision avoidance (p<.001), whereas concerns about consequences for affect did not (p=.079). Contrary to predictions, older age was not significantly associated with information avoidance (p=.827). Further, self-reported concerns about the influence of unwanted information on affect and decision preferences were negatively associated with age (ps<.001). This suggests that interventions to foster pre-decisional information seeking should be tailored to the target age group.

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Age Differences in Engagement in Hong Kong Anti-Extradition Bill Protest: The Role of Self-Relevance

Innovation in Aging ◽

10.1093/geroni/igaa057.1090 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽

pp. 340-340

Author(s):

Tze Kiu Wong ◽

Dwight C K Tse ◽

Nicole Long Ki Fung ◽

Helene Fung

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Hong Kong ◽

Social Movement ◽

Age Differences ◽

Real Life ◽

Age Difference ◽

Younger Adults ◽

Perceived Relevance ◽

Political Actions

Abstract Older adults were found to be less involved in non-institutional political actions than younger people did, and our previous work found that self-relevance mediated this age difference. In this study, we attempted to replicate the finding in a real-life social movement. We recruited 1037 participants (aged 18-84) during the anti-extradition bill movement in Hong Kong in September 2019. They responded to questions of how relevant and important the movement was to them, and whether they had taken part in a list of 8 political actions (e.g. signing petitions, joining rallies). Older adults indeed participated less in the movement compared with younger adults, and the age difference could partly be attributed to a lower perceived relevance of the movement. The finding suggested emphasizing on self-relevance as a potential way to promote political participation in older adults.

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Video Games and Emotion Regulation

GeroPsych ◽

10.1024/1662-9647/a000196 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 31 (4) ◽

pp. 205-213 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Kathryn L. Ossenfort ◽

Derek M. Isaacowitz

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Emotion Regulation ◽

Video Games ◽

Age Differences ◽

Interactive Media ◽

Age Groups ◽

Younger Adults ◽

Media Usage ◽

The Everyday ◽

Media Preferences

Abstract. Research on age differences in media usage has shown that older adults are more likely than younger adults to select positive emotional content. Research on emotional aging has examined whether older adults also seek out positivity in the everyday situations they choose, resulting so far in mixed results. We investigated the emotional choices of different age groups using video games as a more interactive type of affect-laden stimuli. Participants made multiple selections from a group of positive and negative games. Results showed that older adults selected the more positive games, but also reported feeling worse after playing them. Results supplement the literature on positivity in situation selection as well as on older adults’ interactive media preferences.

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Executive Dysfunction Mediates the Association Between Older Age and Online Health Information Search Performance

10.31234/osf.io/cjnyu ◽

2020 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Victoria Kordovski ◽

Savanna M. Tierney ◽

Samina Rahman ◽

Luis D. Medina ◽

Michelle A. Babicz ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Executive Functions ◽

Information Search ◽

Search Task ◽

Executive Dysfunction ◽

Older Age ◽

The Internet ◽

Younger Adults ◽

Related Information ◽

Health Related

Objective: Searching the Internet for health-related information is a complex and dynamic goal-oriented process that places demands on executive functions, which are higher-order cognitive abilities that are known to deteriorate with older age. This study aimed to examine the effects of older age on electronic health (eHealth) search behavior, and to determine whether executive functions played a mediating role in that regard. Method: Fifty younger adults (≤ 35 years) and 41 older adults (≥50 years) completed naturalistic eHealth search tasks involving fact-finding (Fact Search) and symptom diagnosis (Symptom Search), a neurocognitive battery, and a series of questionnaires. Results: Multiple regression models with relevant covariates revealed that older adults were slower and less accurate than younger adults on the eHealth Fact Search task, but not on the eHealth Symptom Search task. Nevertheless, executive functions mediated the relationship between older age and eHealth Fact Search and Symptom Search accuracy. Conclusions: Older adults can experience difficulty searching the Internet for some health-related information, which is at least partly attributable to executive dysfunction. Future studies are needed to determine the benefits of training in the organizational and strategic aspects of Internet search for older adults and whether these findings are applicable to clinical populations with executive dysfunction.

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Age Differences in Executive Control Assessed with a Robotic Object Hit and Avoid Test of Rapid Motor Decision Making

Innovation in Aging ◽

10.1093/geroni/igaa057.3255 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽

pp. 881-882

Author(s):

Alexandra Watral ◽

Kevin Trewartha

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Decision Making ◽

Executive Functioning ◽

Age Differences ◽

Executive Control ◽

Test Performance ◽

Cognitive Status ◽

Younger Adults ◽

Neuropsychological Tasks ◽

Measures Of Performance

Abstract Motor decision-making processes are required for many standard neuropsychological tasks, including the Trail Making Test (TMT), that aim to assess cognitive functioning in older adults. However, in their standard formats, it is difficult to isolate the relative contributions of sensorimotor and cognitive processes to performance on these neuropsychological tasks. Recently developed clinical tasks use a robotic manipulandum to assess both motor and cognitive aspects of rapid motor decision making in an object hit (OH) and object hit and avoid (OHA) task. We administered the OH and OHA tasks to 77 healthy younger adults and 59 healthy older adults to assess age differences in the motor and cognitive measures of performance. We administered the TMT parts A and B to assess the extent to which OHA performance is associated with executive functioning in particular. The results indicate that after controlling for hand speed, older adults performed worse on the OH and OHA tasks than younger adults, performance declines were far greater in the OHA task, and the global performance measures, which have been associated with cognitive status, were more sensitive to age differences than motor measures of performance. Those global measures of performance were also associated with measures of executive functioning on the TMT task. These findings provide evidence that rapid motor decision making tasks are sensitive to declines in executive control in aging. They also provide a way to isolate cognitive declines from declines in sensorimotor processes that are likely a contributing factor to age differences in neuropsychological test performance.

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Framing Effects and Fuzzy Traces: ‘Some’ Observations

Review of Philosophy and Psychology ◽

10.1007/s13164-021-00556-3 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Sarah A. Fisher

Keyword(s):

Framing Effects ◽

Decision Makers ◽

Core Element ◽

Alternative Interventions ◽

Trace Theory ◽

Fuzzy Trace Theory ◽

The Core ◽

Making Sense ◽

Lower Bounding ◽

Central Claim

AbstractFraming effects occur when people respond differently to the same information, just because it is conveyed in different words. For example, in the classic ‘Disease Problem’ introduced by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, people’s choices between alternative interventions depend on whether these are described positively, in terms of the number of people who will be saved, or negatively in terms of the corresponding number who will die. In this paper, I discuss an account of framing effects based on ‘fuzzy-trace theory’. The central claim of this account is that people represent the numbers in framing problems in a ‘gist-like’ way, as ‘some’; and that this creates a categorical contrast between ‘some’ people being saved (or dying) and ‘no’ people being saved (or dying). I argue that fuzzy-trace theory’s gist-like representation, ‘some’, must have the semantics of ‘some and possibly all’, not ‘some but not all’. I show how this commits fuzzy-trace theory to a modest version of a rival ‘lower bounding hypothesis’, according to which lower-bounded interpretations of quantities contribute to framing effects by rendering the alternative descriptions extensionally inequivalent. As a result, fuzzy-trace theory is incoherent as it stands. Making sense of it requires dropping, or refining, the claim that decision-makers perceive alternatively framed options as extensionally equivalent; and the related claim that framing effects are irrational. I end by suggesting that, whereas the modest lower bounding hypothesis is well supported, there is currently less evidence for the core element of the fuzzy trace account.

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Age Differences in the Social Associative Learning of Trust Information

10.31234/osf.io/b38rd ◽

2022 ◽

Author(s):

Kendra Leigh Seaman ◽

Alexander P. Christensen ◽

Katherine Senn ◽

Jessica Cooper ◽

Brittany Shane Cassidy

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Age Differences ◽

Social Cues ◽

Trust Game ◽

Time Model ◽

Younger Adults ◽

Cortical Areas ◽

Age Related ◽

The Social ◽

Over Time

Trust is a key component of social interaction. Older adults, however, often exhibit excessive trust relative to younger adults. One explanation is that older adults may learn to trust differently than younger adults. Here, we examine how younger (N=33) and older adults (N=30) learn to trust over time. Participants completed a classic iterative trust game with three partners. Younger and older adults shared similar amounts but differed in how they shared money. Compared to younger adults, older adults invested more with untrustworthy partners and less with trustworthy partners. As a group, older adults displayed less learning than younger adults. However, computational modeling shows that this is because older adults are more likely to forget what they have learned over time. Model-based fMRI analyses revealed several age-related differences in neural processing. Younger adults showed prediction error signals in social processing areas while older adults showed over-recruitment of several cortical areas. Collectively, these findings suggest that older adults attend to and learn from social cues differently from younger adults.

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Age differences in the precision of memory at short and long delays

10.31234/osf.io/zucr3 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Stephen Rhodes ◽

Emily E Abenne ◽

Ashley M Meierhofer ◽

Moshe Naveh-Benjamin

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Age Differences ◽

Long Term Memory ◽

Age Difference ◽

Younger Adults ◽

Recall Error ◽

Successful Recall ◽

Error Distance

Age differences are well established for many memory tasks assessing both short-term and long-term memory. However, how age differences in performance vary with increasing delay between study and test is less clear. Here we report two experiments in which participants studied a continuous sequence of object-location pairings. Test events were intermixed such that participants were asked to recall the precise location of an object following a variable delay. Older adults exhibit a greater degree of error (distance between studied and recalled locations) relative to younger adults at short (0-2 intervening events) and longer delays (10-25 intervening events). Mixture modeling of the distribution of recall error suggests that older adults do not fail to recall information at a significantly higher rate than younger adults. Instead, what they do recall appears to be less precise. Follow up analyses demonstrate that this age difference emerges following only one or two intervening events between study and test. These findings are consistent with the suggestion that aging does not greatly impair recall from the focus of attention but age differences emerge once information is displaced from this highly accessible state. Further, we suggest that age differences in the precision of memory, but not the probability of successful recall, may be due to the use of more gist-like representations in this task.

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