Negative Aging Stereotypes Disrupt both the Selection and Execution of Strategies in Older Adults

Gerontology ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 373-381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Lemaire ◽  
Fleur Brun ◽  
Isabelle Régner
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Stereotype Threat ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Cued Recall ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Abstract Words ◽  
Noncognitive Factors ◽  
Age Range ◽  
Concrete Words

Background: Age-based cognitive deficits are exacerbated by stereotype threat effects (i.e., the threat of being judged as cognitively incapable due to aging). We tested whether age-based stereotype threat effects can occur via impair- ing older adults’ ability to select the best strategy and/or to execute strategies efficiently. Methods: Older adults (age range: 64.3–89.5 years) were randomly assigned to a stereotype threat or control condition before taking an episodic memory task. They encoded pairs of concrete words and of abstract words, with either a repetition or an imagery strategy, and then took a cued-recall task. Whereas participants in experiment 1 could choose between these two strategies, those of experiment 2 were forced to use either the repetition or the imagery strategy. Results: Our findings showed that age-based stereotype threat disrupts both the selection and execution of the most efficient, but also most resource-demanding, imagery strategy, and that these stereotype threat effects were stronger on concrete words. Conclusion: Our findings have important implications to further understand age-based (and other) stereotype threat effects, and how noncognitive factors modulate age-related changes in human cognition.

scholarly journals Cultural Differences in Susceptibility to Stereotype Threat: France versus India

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Poshita Nicolas ◽  
Isabelle Régner ◽  
Patrick Lemaire
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Stereotype Threat ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Strategy Selection ◽  
Arithmetic Problem ◽  
Aging Effects ◽  
Cognitive Domains ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Age Related

Abstract Objectives Negative aging stereotypes make older adults perform below their true potential in a number of cognitive domains. This phenomenon, known as Age-Based Stereotype Threat, is currently viewed as a powerful factor contributing to an overestimation of cognitive decline in normal aging. However, age-based stereotype threat has been investigated almost exclusively in Western countries. Whether this phenomenon is universal or culture-specific is unknown. Method Here, we first ran a pilot study (N = 106) in which we assessed French and Indian participants’ attitudes towards aging. Then, we assessed stereotype threat effects on arithmetic problem-solving performance and strategies in French and Indian older adults (N = 104). Results We found that French older adults have more negative implicit attitudes towards aging than Indian older adults. We also found that culture modulates age-based stereotype threat effects. Whereas French older adults experienced stereotype threat on both selection and execution of strategies on all arithmetic problems, Indian older adults experienced this threat only in their strategy selection on harder problems. Most interestingly, cultural differences emerged on arithmetic problems under stereotype threat condition, where otherwise no cultural differences were found in the control condition. Discussion Our findings have important implications for understanding how cultural contexts change aging effects on human cognition and age-related difference in cognitive performance.

Goal disengagement capacities and severity of disease across older adulthood

2015 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joelle Jobin ◽  
Carsten Wrosch
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Depressive Symptoms ◽  
Emotional Distress ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Older Adulthood ◽  
Mediation Analyses ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Goal Disengagement ◽  
Age Range ◽  
Early Old Age

This study examined age-related associations between goal disengagement capacities, emotional distress, and disease severity across older adulthood. Given that an age-related increase in the experience of stressors might render important goals unattainable, it is expected that goal disengagement capacities would predict a decrease in the severity of experienced illness (i.e., the common cold) by preventing emotional distress (i.e., depressive symptoms), particularly so among individuals in advanced (as compared to early) old age. This hypothesis was tested in a 6-year longitudinal study of 131 older adults (age range = 64 to 90). Regression analyses showed that goal disengagement capacities buffered 6-year increases in older adults’ cold symptoms, and that this effect was significantly pronounced among older-old participants. Mediation analyses further indicated that changes in depressive symptoms exerted an indirect effect on the age-related association between goal disengagement and changes in cold symptoms. The study’s findings suggest that goal disengagement capacities become increasingly important for protecting emotional well-being and physical health as older adults advance in age.

scholarly journals AGE-BASED STEREOTYPE THREAT: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF PRIMING TECHNIQUES AND THEIR EFFECTS

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S455-S456
Author(s):  
Francesco Vailati Riboni ◽  
Francesco Pagnini
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Older Adults ◽  
Stereotype Threat ◽  
Functional Performance ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Experimental Methods ◽  
Experimental Manipulation ◽  
Older Individuals ◽  
Negative Stereotypes ◽  
Age Related

Abstract Age-based stereotype threat (ABST) occurs when older adults are influenced by negative stereotypes about age-related decline and functional losses and ironically behave in disengaging and self-defeating ways that confirm the stereotype (Steele & Aronson, 1995). Aging stereotypes are found to be strong predictors of health and illness outcomes in later life, and are associated with performance in specific areas, mainly in cognitive and physical domains. The current study reviewed the experimental methods and their reported effects previously published in the literature to determine if there were different ABST methods were associated with different types of age-related outcomes. We conducted a systematic review, screening the scientific literature for papers that included experimental manipulation of age-related stereotypes as an independent variable, focusing on samples of older adults (1113 articles, most published after 2003). Through a classification of the common and distinctive characteristics of the different stereotype manipulation techniques, we were able to identify three specific types of experimental methods: by instruction, tests, and interpersonal exposure. Although the mechanism by which stereotypes are associated with functional outcomes in older adults remains unclear, our review suggests it is possible to experimentally control the activation of the stereotype by manipulating its specific characteristics and the way older participants are exposed to it. Findings also highlight the possibility that specific experimental methods used to induce ABST in older individuals may lead to unique and different consequences on functional performance variation.

scholarly journals Neurometabolic Correlates of Reactive and Proactive Motor Inhibition in Young and Older Adults: Evidence from Multiple Regional 1H-MR Spectroscopy

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Akila Weerasekera ◽  
Oron Levin ◽  
Amanda Clauwaert ◽  
Kirstin-Friederike Heise ◽  
Lize Hermans ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Inhibitory Control ◽  
Inferior Frontal Gyrus ◽  
Proactive Inhibition ◽  
Older Age ◽  
Resonance Spectroscopy ◽  
Reactive Inhibition ◽  
Age Related ◽  
The Right ◽  
Age Range

Abstract Suboptimal inhibitory control is a major factor contributing to motor/cognitive deficits in older age and pathology. Here, we provide novel insights into the neurochemical biomarkers of inhibitory control in healthy young and older adults and highlight putative neurometabolic correlates of deficient inhibitory functions in normal aging. Age-related alterations in levels of glutamate–glutamine complex (Glx), N-acetylaspartate (NAA), choline (Cho), and myo-inositol (mIns) were assessed in the right inferior frontal gyrus (RIFG), pre-supplementary motor area (preSMA), bilateral sensorimotor cortex (SM1), bilateral striatum (STR), and occipital cortex (OCC) with proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS). Data were collected from 30 young (age range 18–34 years) and 29 older (age range 60–74 years) adults. Associations between age-related changes in the levels of these metabolites and performance measures or reactive/proactive inhibition were examined for each age group. Glx levels in the right striatum and preSMA were associated with more efficient proactive inhibition in young adults but were not predictive for reactive inhibition performance. Higher NAA/mIns ratios in the preSMA and RIFG and lower mIns levels in the OCC were associated with better deployment of proactive and reactive inhibition in older adults. Overall, these findings suggest that altered regional concentrations of NAA and mIns constitute potential biomarkers of suboptimal inhibitory control in aging.

Examining Positivity Effect and Working Memory in Young-Old and Very Old Adults Using EEG-Derived Cognitive State Metrics

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (10) ◽  
pp. 1014-1035
Author(s):  
Joelle C. Ruthig ◽  
Dmitri P. Poltavski ◽  
Thomas Petros
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Cognitive State ◽  
Emotional Stimuli ◽  
Very Old ◽  
Positivity Effect ◽  
Old Adults ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Young Old

The positivity effect among older adults is a tendency to process more positive and/or less negative emotional stimuli compared to younger adults, with unknown upper age boundaries. Cognitive and emotional working memory were assessed in young-old adults (60–75) and very old adults (VOAs; 80+) to determine whether emotional working memory declines similar to the age-related decline of cognitive working memory. The moderating role of valence on the link between age and emotional working memory was examined to identify change in positivity effect with advanced age. Electroencephalography (EEG) markers of cognitive workload and engagement were obtained to test the theory of cognitive resource allocation in older adults’ emotional stimuli processing. EEG recordings were collected during cognitive memory task and emotional working memory tasks that required rating emotional intensity of images pairs. Results indicate a positivity effect among VOAs that does not require additional cognitive effort and is not likely to diminish with age.

scholarly journals Age-related Differences in Brain Activity during True and False Memory Retrieval

2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (8) ◽  
pp. 1390-1402 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy A. Dennis ◽  
Hongkeun Kim ◽  
Roberto Cabeza
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
False Memory ◽  
Semantic Processing ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
False Memories ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Retrosplenial Cortex ◽  
Age Related

Compared to young adults, older adults show not only a reduction in true memories but also an increase in false memories. We investigated the neural bases of these age effects using functional magnetic resonance imaging and a false memory task that resembles the Deese–Roediger–McDermott (DRM) paradigm. Young and older participants were scanned during a word recognition task that included studied words and new words that were strongly associated with studied words (critical lures). During correct recognition of studied words (true memory), older adults showed weaker activity than young adults in the hippocampus but stronger activity than young adults in the retrosplenial cortex. The hippocampal reduction is consistent with age-related deficits in recollection, whereas the retrosplenial increase suggests compensatory recruitment of alternative recollection-related regions. During incorrect recognition of critical lures (false memory), older adults displayed stronger activity than young adults in the left lateral temporal cortex, a region involved in semantic processing and semantic gist. Taken together, the results suggest that older adults' deficits in true memories reflect a decline in recollection processes mediated by the hippocampus, whereas their increased tendency to have false memories reflects their reliance on semantic gist mediated by the lateral temporal cortex.

scholarly journals Age-related changes in visual encoding strategy preferences during a spatial memory task

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladislava Segen ◽  
Marios N Avraamides ◽  
Timothy J. Slattery ◽  
Jan Wiener
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Spatial Memory ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Impaired Performance ◽  
Object Locations ◽  
Visual Encoding ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Encoding Strategies ◽  
Encoding Strategy

Ageing is associated with declines in spatial memory, however, the source of these deficits remains unclear. Here we used eye-tracking to investigate age-related differences in spatial encoding strategies and the cognitive processes underlying the age-related deficits in spatial memory tasks. To do so we asked young and older participants to encode the locations of objects in a virtual room shown as a picture on a computer screen. The availability and utility of room-based landmarks was manipulated by removing landmarks, presenting identical landmarks rendering them uninformative, or by presenting unique landmarks that could be used to encode object locations. In the test phase, participants viewed a second picture of the same room taken from the same (0°) or a different perspective (30°) and judged whether the objects occupied the same or different locations in the room. We found that the introduction of perspective shift and swapping of objects between encoding and testing impaired performance in both age groups. Furthermore, our results revealed that although older adults performed the task as well as younger participants, they relied on different visual encoding strategies to solve the task. Specifically, gaze analysis revealed that older adults showed a greater preference towards a more categorical encoding strategy in which they formed relationships between objects and landmarks.

scholarly journals What affects the magnitude of age-related dual-task costs in working memory? The role of stimulus domain and access to semantic representations

2020 ◽  
pp. 174702182097074
Author(s):  
Agnieszka J Jaroslawska ◽  
Stephen Rhodes ◽  
Clément Belletier ◽  
Jason M Doherty ◽  
Nelson Cowan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Dual Task ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Semantic Representations ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Task Effects ◽  
Concurrent Processing ◽  
Age Related

Although there is evidence that the effect of including a concurrent processing demand on the storage of information in working memory is disproportionately larger for older than younger adults, not all studies show this age-related impairment, and the critical factors responsible for any such impairment remain elusive. Here we assess whether domain overlap between storage and processing activities, and access to semantic representations, are important determinants of performance in a sample of younger and older adults ( N = 119). We developed four versions of a processing task by manipulating the type of stimuli involved (either verbal or non-verbal) and the decision that participants had to make about the stimuli presented on the screen. Participants either had to perform a spatial judgement, in deciding whether the verbal or non-verbal item was presented above or below the centre of the screen, or a semantic judgement, in deciding whether the stimulus refers to something living or not living. The memory task was serial-ordered recall of visually presented letters. The study revealed a large increase in age-related memory differences when concurrent processing was required. These differences were smaller when storage and processing activities both used verbal materials. Dual-task effects on processing were also disproportionate for older adults. Age differences in processing performance appeared larger for tasks requiring spatial decisions rather than semantic decisions. We discuss these findings in relation to three competing frameworks of working memory and the extant literature on cognitive ageing.

Age effects on category learning and their relationship to deficits in memory specificity

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caitlin Bowman ◽  
Stefania Rene Ashby ◽  
Dagmar Zeithamova
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Category Learning ◽  
Conceptual Knowledge ◽  
Cued Recall ◽  
Specific Information ◽  
Perceived Similarity ◽  
Memory Specificity ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Direct Learning ◽  
Age Deficits

Age deficits in memory for individual episodes are well established. Less is known about how age affects another key memory function: the ability to form new conceptual knowledge. Here we studied age differences in concept formation in a category-learning paradigm with face-blend stimuli, using several metrics: direct learning of category members presented during training, generalization of category labels to new examples, and shifts in perceived similarity between category members that often follow category learning. Age deficits in categorization were compared to metrics of memory specificity (recognition, cued-recall) for the same set of stimuli. We found that older adults were impaired in direct learning of training examples, but there was no generalization deficit above-and-beyond the deficit in direct learning. We also found that category learning affected the perceived similarity between members of the same versus opposing categories, and age did not significantly moderate this effect. When comparing categorization to memory specificity, we found that categorization deficits were smaller than deficits in recall and comparable to deficits in recognition, showing that categorization deficits are smaller than some of the largest known age-related memory deficits. Lastly, we compared traditional category learning to categorization after a learning task in which a category label (shared last name) was presented alongside stimulus-specific information (unique first names that individuated category members). We found that simultaneously learning stimulus-specific and category information resulted in decreased category learning in both age groups, and that this decrement was not disproportionate in older adults.

The effects of stereotype threat on the associative memory deficit of older adults

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Matthew S. Brubaker
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Stereotype Threat ◽  
Associative Memory ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Memory Deficit ◽  
Item Memory ◽  
University Of Missouri ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Associative Deficit ◽  
Negative Effect

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] One of the suggestions made in the literature regarding older adults' episodic memory decline is that it is caused by their reduced ability to bind together components of an episode and retrieve the binding (termed an associative deficit). The purpose of the current research is to assess whether the age-related associative memory deficit is at least partially mediated by stereotype threat, which has been shown to negatively affect performance on a wide variety of cognitive tasks, including memory performance of older adults. To date the effects of stereotype threat on older adults' memory performance have only been shown using tests of item memory, and between subject manipulations. The question assessed in the current research is whether older adults' associative memory will be affected by stereotype threat more than item memory, rendering it one potential factor underlying the associative deficit. To answer this question, three experiments were conducted, which used an item-associative recognition memory paradigm while manipulating stereotype threat both within and between subjects. The first two experiments attempted to establish the baseline effect by directly comparing item and associative memory in younger and older adults under induced stereotype threat, reduced stereotype threat, and no stereotype threat (i.e. control) conditions. While a baseline age-related associative deficit was not shown in the control condition, inducing stereotype threat did have a significant negative effect on older adults' associative memory performance without affecting item memory performance -- suggesting that stereotype threat does increase the age-related associative deficit. The third experiment further assessed the stage of processing -- encoding, retrieval, or both -- during which the effect of stereotype threat on older adults' memory occurs. Results showed that when stereotype threat was induced only at retrieval, memory performance was in line with performance with the reduced stereotype threat and control conditions, suggesting that this effect of stereotype threat occurs primarily during encoding of the information.

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