Why Do Some Older Adults Avoid Memory Retrieval When Acquiring a New Skill?

2021 ◽  
pp. 182-202
Author(s):  
Christopher Hertzog ◽  
Dayna R. Touron
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Skill Acquisition ◽  
Financial Incentives ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Retrieval Strategy ◽  
Memory Research ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Item Level ◽  
Acquisition Task ◽  
Task Practice

Older adults are slower to acquire new cognitive skills requiring a shift from controlled (algorithmic) processing to automatic responding based on retrieving newly unitized information from memory. Research demonstrates that older adults’ delayed retrieval shift is a strategic avoidance of relying on memory when doing so would be successful, not just a function of age-related slowing in rates of associative learning. Older adults’ retrieval avoidance can be reduced by financial incentives to respond rapidly, recognition probes that demonstrate the accessibility of correct information, and other experimental manipulations. Item-level strategy reports show an exponential rise in retrieval strategy use with practice but not for all participants. A proportion of the older samples are retrieval strategy avoidant across the entire course of skill acquisition task practice. The chapter comments on the motivational nature of retrieval strategy avoidance and the possible practical consequences of a retrieval avoidance mode for older adults.

scholarly journals Older Adults’ Perceptions of the Usefulness of Technologies for Engaging in Physical Activity: Using Focus Groups to Explore Physical Literacy

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 1144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandre Monte Campelo ◽  
Larry Katz
Keyword(s):  
Physical Activity ◽  
Older Adults ◽  
Focus Groups ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Controlled Trial ◽  
Training Group ◽  
Physical Literacy ◽  
Exercise Programs ◽  
Age Related

Insufficient physical activity (PA) levels observed among older adults remain extremely high and pose a danger to developing and maintaining their physical literacy (PL). Each person’s level of PL partly depends on their physical and cognitive skills, confidence level, and degree of motivation to practice PA daily. New technologies, such as exergames and wearable fitness trackers, may enable older adults to increase their PL, stimulating uptake and ongoing PA participation. Objective: This focus group study aims to describe older adults’ perceptions of the use of technologies to engage in physical exercise programs. Methods: Fifteen participants were randomly selected from a sample of 40 older adults who completed a randomized controlled trial that investigated the benefits of using technology in the context of group-based exercise programs. Separate post-intervention focus groups were performed with an exergaming group, a conventional physical training group, and a no training group (control). Data were mapped onto constructs from the four domains of PL: affective, physical, cognitive, and behavioral. Results: Generally, participants expressed positive perceptions about the benefits of using technology to engage in PA. These positive feelings outweighed the costs and the lack of familiarization with technology. Common themes for the three groups emerged from the discussions and included familiarization with technology, using fitness tracker to monitor PA, previous exposure to technology, and interaction with peers, staff members, and relatives. In particular, participants from the exergaming group explored the ideas of training their cognitive skills while using the exergame accessories, exercising in an alternative way, competitive versus cooperative play, changes in sense of humor, skill transferability from game to real environment, progressions of the exercise intensities, and the potential use of exergames for rehabilitation. Conclusions: Participants in this study reported positive perceptions about implementing technology into exercise. Emphasizing the benefits of using technology in group-based exercise programs may increase older adults’ PL levels and their future technology adoption. The potential implementation of technology into conventional exercise programs should focus on older adults’ lifelong values, biopsychosocial conditions, and the possibility of reducing age-related risk of injuries and chronic diseases.

Influence of Training and Experience on Skill Acquisition and Maintenance in Older Adults

2000 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 373-378 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur D. Fisk ◽  
Wendy A. Rogers
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Skill Acquisition ◽  
Skill Learning ◽  
Laboratory Studies ◽  
Successful Performance ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Acquisition Rate ◽  
Final Performance ◽  
Everyday Activities ◽  
Age Related

Two important questions are addressed in this article. The first concerns whether performance of well-learned skills is maintained as individuals grow older. The second question concerns whether older adults are able to acquire new skills. The answer to both questions is “yes”; however, the acquisition rate and the final performance level for newly acquired skills is generally less for older adults than for younger adults. The article resolves an apparent puzzle of how it is that older adults are capable of successful performance of everyday activities, given noted declines in cognitive-ability-type tasks shown for performance in laboratory studies. A brief discussion of age-related training strategies to enhance skill learning is provided.

scholarly journals Age-related differences in conversational discourse abilities A comparative study

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-71
Author(s):  
Natalie Pereira ◽  
Ana Paula Bresolin Gonçalves ◽  
Mariana Goulart ◽  
Marina Amarante Tarrasconi ◽  
Renata Kochhann ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Healthy Aging ◽  
Screening Tools ◽  
Discourse Comprehension ◽  
Chi Square ◽  
Conversational Discourse ◽  
Communicative Behaviors ◽  
Age Related

ABSTRACT. Conversational discourse (CD) is among the most complex tasks in everyday life and relies on multiple cognitive domains (communicative and executive abilities). Alterations in discourse comprehension and production are often present in pathological aging. However, there is still a need to identify changes in healthy aging. Objective: This study aimed to compare young and older adults for the frequency of impaired communicative behaviors on a CD task. Performance was scored according to the Complementary Procedure of Conversational Discourse Analysis (CPCDA), developed based on the CD task from the Montreal Communication Evaluation Battery. Methods: A total of 95 participants (54 young-adults and 41 older adults) were evaluated. The frequency of communicative behaviors was compared between groups using MANCOVA and Chi-square tests. Results: Young adults showed fewer impairments in expression, pragmatics, cohesion, coherence, comprehension and emotional prosody. Older adults showed higher levels of verbal initiative and had fewer word finding difficulties. Communicative behaviors associated with planning and self-monitoring (e.g. repetition of information and syllabic false starts) appear to be common in the speech of healthy individuals in general. Conclusion: Studies which evaluate both discursive and cognitive skills are required to identify age-related changes. This would allow for the development of screening tools for CD assessment and preventive programs.

scholarly journals Schematic Support increases Memory Strategy Use in Young and Older Adults

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack Kuhns ◽  
Dayna R Touron
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Strategy Use ◽  
Related Phenomenon ◽  
Retrieval Strategy ◽  
Noun Pair ◽  
Retrieval Accuracy ◽  
Learning Tasks ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Task Experience

During learning, a shift in processing often occurs with increased task experience, where initialslow, algorithmic processing proceeds into fast, retrieval-based processing. Older adults are slower than young adults in the rate at which this shift occurs, in part due a reluctance to use a retrieval strategy. The present research employed task materials that alleviate age-related differences in associative memory so that participants could rely on prior knowledge, or schematic support. The goal was to determine whether older adults’ retrieval reluctance is due to a general avoidance of using the retrieval strategy or to low confidence in their memory for unfamiliar task materials. Participants completed two learning tasks: the Noun-Pair Lookup Task, where task materials consist of unrelated noun pairs, and an isomorph, the Grocery-Price Look Task, where task materials were grocery-items and prices. In this second task, the prices were either market-priced and consistent with everyday experience or were overpriced. Older adults were retrieval reluctant in the Noun-Pair Lookup Task, replicating previous findings. Stark condition differences were found in the Grocery-Price Lookup Task; older adults shifted much sooner for market-priced materials than for overpriced materials, and young adults shifted much later than expected for overpriced materials, where their final levels of learning were inconsistent with their memory use. Condition differences in retrieval use were substantially larger than the differences in retrieval accuracy. These results imply that confidence in using the retrieval strategy matters for both young and older adults, and that retrieval reluctance is not solely an age-related phenomenon.

scholarly journals Domain general processes moderate age-related performance differences on the mnemonic similarity task

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris M. Foster ◽  
Kelly S. Giovanello
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Processing Speed ◽  
Cognitive Aging ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Study Phase ◽  
Age Group ◽  
Cognitive Changes ◽  
Inhibitory Function ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Item Level

Several prominent domain general theories (e.g., processing speed and inhibitory function) have been developed to explain cognitive changes associated with aging. A bias to “pattern complete” in aging has also been suggested to account for age-related changes that are specific to episodic memory. The current experiments test whether domain-general processes of cognitive aging moderate the bias to pattern complete. The study phase of the mnemonic similarity task, a memory task with old, new, and similar trials at recognition, was manipulated to assess the contribution of processing speed (Experiment 1 – different encoding times) and inhibitory function (Experiment 2 – item-level directed forgetting) to the age-related bias to pattern complete in a sample of 100 healthy younger and older adults. Both experiments exhibited significant interactions between age group and encoding manipulation, replicating a bias to pattern complete in aging, and indicating that processing speed and inhibitory function moderate this effect. Age-related differences in performance on the mnemonic similarity task are moderated by experimental manipulations of domain general processes that also decline with age, providing evidence for conditions that can ameliorate and explain performance decrements on the mnemonic similarity task in older adults.

Psychological Assessment of Older Persons

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jarred Gallegos ◽  
Julie Lutz ◽  
Emma Katz ◽  
Barry Edelstein
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Mental Health Problems ◽  
Assessment Process ◽  
Assessment Instruments ◽  
Related Factors ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Age Appropriate ◽  
Valid Assessment ◽  
Sensory Processes

The assessment of older adults is quite challenging in light of the many age-related physiological and metabolic changes, increased number of chronic diseases with potential psychiatric manifestations, the associated medications and their side effects, and the age-related changes in the presentation of common mental health problems and disorders. A biopsychosocial approach to assessment is particularly important for older adults due to the substantial interplay of biological, psychological, and social factors that collectively produce the clinical presentation faced by clinicians. An appreciation of age-related and non-normative changes in cognitive skills and sensory processes is particularly important both for planning the assessment process and the interpretation of findings. The assessment of older adults is unfortunately plagued by a paucity of age-appropriate assessment instruments, as most instruments have been developed with young adults. This paucity of age-appropriate assessment instruments is an impediment to reliable and valid assessment. Notwithstanding that caveat, comprehensive and valid assessment of older adults can be accomplished through an understanding of the interaction of age-related factors that influence the experience and presentation of psychiatric disorders, and an appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of the assessment instruments that are used to achieve valid and reliable assessments.

Age and Skill Differences in Adaptive Competence

1994 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
M Cecil Smith ◽  
Nancy DeFrates-Densch ◽  
Thomas O. Schrader ◽  
Susan F. Crone ◽  
Denise Davis ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Motor Skills ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Social Environmental ◽  
Social Environmental Factors ◽  
Qualitative Changes

Previous research has documented qualitative changes in certain cognitive abilities during the older adult years, such as in short-term memory, perceptual and motor skills, and attentional capacities. Other work has suggested that a number of significant age-related changes, across a variety of cognitive abilities, are based on social experiences, such as occupational or recreational activities. The current study is based on earlier research by Perlmutter and her colleagues (1990) and examines age and skill-related differences among adults engaged in a social-recreational activity. BINGO players, ranging in age from nineteen to seventy-four, and having from less than two months to over twenty years of playing experience, were given a variety of psychometric, cognitive, and experimental measures. The participants were also observed as they played real BINGO games. No age-related differences were found on the psychometric or memory measures, suggesting that BINGO playing experience may have positive benefits for many older adults. Skilled players at all age levels were found to be more efficient in their game-playing actions. The oldest and most experienced players did not differ from the younger, equally experienced, players on the cognitive and skill-based tasks. These findings demonstrate the need to investigate adaptive competence in those situations in which social-environmental factors play a role in enhancing older adults' cognitive skills.

Age-Related Differences in Processing Dynamic Information to Identify Vowel Quality

1992 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 892-902 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Allen Fox ◽  
Lida G. Wall ◽  
Jeanne Gokcen
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Vowel Quality ◽  
Perceptual Cues ◽  
Dynamic Information ◽  
Process Dynamic ◽  
Center Condition ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Control Version ◽  
Older Subjects ◽  
Whole Word

This study examined age-related differences in the use of dynamic acoustic information (in the form of formant transitions) to identify vowel quality in CVCs. Two versions of 61 naturally produced, commonly occurring, monosyllabic English words were created: a control version (the unmodified whole word) and a silent-center version (in which approximately 62% of the medial vowel was replaced by silence). A group of normal-hearing young adults (19–25 years old) and older adults (61–75 years old) identified these tokens. The older subjects were found to be significantly worse than the younger subjects at identifying the medial vowel and the initial and final consonants in the silent-center condition. These results support the hypothesis of an age-related decrement in the ability to process dynamic perceptual cues in the perception of vowel quality.

Activity Engagement in Cognitive Aging: A Review of the Evidence

2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yvonne Rogalski ◽  
Muriel Quintana
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Cognitive Decline ◽  
Cognitive Aging ◽  
Social Activity ◽  
Current Evidence ◽  
Omega 3 ◽  
Neuroprotective Effects ◽  
Activity Engagement ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Age Related Cognitive Decline

The population of older adults is rapidly increasing, as is the number and type of products and interventions proposed to prevent or reduce the risk of age-related cognitive decline. Advocacy and prevention are part of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s (ASHA’s) scope of practice documents, and speech-language pathologists must have basic awareness of the evidence contributing to healthy cognitive aging. In this article, we provide a brief overview outlining the evidence on activity engagement and its effects on cognition in older adults. We explore the current evidence around the activities of eating and drinking with a discussion on the potential benefits of omega-3 fatty acids, polyphenols, alcohol, and coffee. We investigate the evidence on the hypothesized neuroprotective effects of social activity, the evidence on computerized cognitive training, and the emerging behavioral and neuroimaging evidence on physical activity. We conclude that actively aging using a combination of several strategies may be our best line of defense against cognitive decline.

Inefficient Encoding as an Explanation for Age-Related Deficits in Recollection-Based Processing

2014 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 148-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Friedman ◽  
Ray Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Semantic Retrieval ◽  
Age Related ◽  
The Face ◽  
Episodic Memories

A cardinal feature of aging is a decline in episodic memory (EM). Nevertheless, there is evidence that some older adults may be able to “compensate” for failures in recollection-based processing by recruiting brain regions and cognitive processes not normally recruited by the young. We review the evidence suggesting that age-related declines in EM performance and recollection-related brain activity (left-parietal EM effect; LPEM) are due to altered processing at encoding. We describe results from our laboratory on differences in encoding- and retrieval-related activity between young and older adults. We then show that, relative to the young, in older adults brain activity at encoding is reduced over a brain region believed to be crucial for successful semantic elaboration in a 400–1,400-ms interval (left inferior prefrontal cortex, LIPFC; Johnson, Nessler, & Friedman, 2013 ; Nessler, Friedman, Johnson, & Bersick, 2007 ; Nessler, Johnson, Bersick, & Friedman, 2006 ). This reduced brain activity is associated with diminished subsequent recognition-memory performance and the LPEM at retrieval. We provide evidence for this premise by demonstrating that disrupting encoding-related processes during this 400–1,400-ms interval in young adults affords causal support for the hypothesis that the reduction over LIPFC during encoding produces the hallmarks of an age-related EM deficit: normal semantic retrieval at encoding, reduced subsequent episodic recognition accuracy, free recall, and the LPEM. Finally, we show that the reduced LPEM in young adults is associated with “additional” brain activity over similar brain areas as those activated when older adults show deficient retrieval. Hence, rather than supporting the compensation hypothesis, these data are more consistent with the scaffolding hypothesis, in which the recruitment of additional cognitive processes is an adaptive response across the life span in the face of momentary increases in task demand due to poorly-encoded episodic memories.

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