scholarly journals Impact of ageing on problem size and proactive interference in arithmetic facts solving

2018 ◽  
Vol 72 (3) ◽  
pp. 446-456 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim Archambeau ◽  
Alice De Visscher ◽  
Marie-Pascale Noël ◽  
Wim Gevers
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Size Effect ◽  
Proactive Interference ◽  
Interference Effect ◽  
Production Task ◽  
Problem Size ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Multiplication Problem ◽  
Problem Size Effect

Arithmetic facts (AFs) are required when solving problems such as “3 × 4” and refer to calculations for which the correct answer is retrieved from memory. Currently, two important effects that modulate the performance in AFs have been highlighted: the problem size effect and the proactive interference effect. The aim of this study is to investigate possible age-related changes of the problem size effect and the proactive interference effect in AF solving. To this end, the performance of young and older adults was compared in a multiplication production task. Furthermore, an independent measure of proactive interference was assessed to further define the architecture underlying this effect in multiplication solving. The results indicate that both young and older adults were sensitive to the effects of interference and of the problem size. That is, both interference and problem size affected performance negatively: the time needed to solve a multiplication problem increases as the level of interference and the size of the problem increase. Regarding the effect of ageing, the problem size effect remains constant with age, indicating a preserved AF network in older adults. Interestingly, sensitivity to proactive interference in multiplication solving was less pronounced in older than in younger adults suggesting that part of the proactive interference has been overcome with age.

scholarly journals The neural bases of the multiplication problem-size effect across countries

2013 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jérôme Prado ◽  
Jiayan Lu ◽  
Li Liu ◽  
Qi Dong ◽  
Xinlin Zhou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Size Effect ◽  
Problem Size ◽  
Multiplication Problem ◽  
Neural Bases ◽  
Problem Size Effect

Cognitive Load Affects Speech Motor Performance Differently in Older and Younger Adults

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (5) ◽  
pp. 1258-1277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan K. MacPherson
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Cognitive Load ◽  
Motor Performance ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Incongruent Condition ◽  
Sentence Production ◽  
Movement Duration ◽  
Production Task ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Speech Motor

PurposeThe aim of this study was to determine the impact of cognitive load imposed by a speech production task on the speech motor performance of healthy older and younger adults. Response inhibition, selective attention, and working memory were the primary cognitive processes of interest.MethodTwelve healthy older and 12 healthy younger adults produced multiple repetitions of 4 sentences containing an embedded Stroop task in 2 cognitive load conditions: congruent and incongruent. The incongruent condition, which required participants to suppress orthographic information to say the font colors in which color words were written, represented an increase in cognitive load relative to the congruent condition in which word text and font color matched. Kinematic measures of articulatory coordination variability and movement duration as well as a behavioral measure of sentence production accuracy were compared between groups and conditions and across 3 sentence segments (pre-, during-, and post-Stroop).ResultsIncreased cognitive load in the incongruent condition was associated with increased articulatory coordination variability and movement duration, compared to the congruent Stroop condition, for both age groups. Overall, the effect of increased cognitive load was greater for older adults than younger adults and was greatest in the portion of the sentence in which cognitive load was manipulated (during-Stroop), followed by the pre-Stroop segment. Sentence production accuracy was reduced for older adults in the incongruent condition.ConclusionsIncreased cognitive load involving response inhibition, selective attention, and working memory processes within a speech production task disrupted both the stability and timing with which speech was produced by both age groups. Older adults' speech motor performance may have been more affected due to age-related changes in cognitive and motoric functions that result in altered motor cognition.

Age-Related Differences in Motivational Integration and Cognitive Control

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Debbie Marianne Yee ◽  
Sarah L Adams ◽  
Asad Beck ◽  
Todd Samuel Braver
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Task Performance ◽  
Cognitive Task ◽  
Monetary Reward ◽  
Potential Candidate ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Cognitive Task Performance

Motivational incentives play an influential role in value-based decision-making and cognitive control. A compelling hypothesis in the literature suggests that the brain integrates the motivational value of diverse incentives (e.g., motivational integration) into a common currency value signal that influences decision-making and behavior. To investigate whether motivational integration processes change during healthy aging, we tested older (N=44) and younger (N=54) adults in an innovative incentive integration task paradigm that establishes dissociable and additive effects of liquid (e.g., juice, neutral, saltwater) and monetary incentives on cognitive task performance. The results reveal that motivational incentives improve cognitive task performance in both older and younger adults, providing novel evidence demonstrating that age-related cognitive control deficits can be ameliorated with sufficient incentive motivation. Additional analyses revealed clear age-related differences in motivational integration. Younger adult task performance was modulated by both monetary and liquid incentives, whereas monetary reward effects were more gradual in older adults and more strongly impacted by trial-by-trial performance feedback. A surprising discovery was that older adults shifted attention from liquid valence toward monetary reward throughout task performance, but younger adults shifted attention from monetary reward toward integrating both monetary reward and liquid valence by the end of the task, suggesting differential strategic utilization of incentives. Together these data suggest that older adults may have impairments in incentive integration, and employ different motivational strategies to improve cognitive task performance. The findings suggest potential candidate neural mechanisms that may serve as the locus of age-related change, providing targets for future cognitive neuroscience investigations.

Internet Navigation Skills for Financial Management: Associations with Age, Neurocognitive Performance, and Functional Capacity

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samina Rahman ◽  
Victoria Kordovski ◽  
Savanna Tierney ◽  
Steven Paul Woods
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Functional Capacity ◽  
Financial Management ◽  
Internet Banking ◽  
Online Banking ◽  
Neurocognitive Performance ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Neurocognitive Functions ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Use Factors

Objective: Online banking is becoming increasingly common among older adults, whomay experience difficulties effectively navigating this instrumental technology. Thisstudy examined age effects on a performance-based Internet banking task and itsassociation with neurocognitive ability and functional capacity in older and youngeradults. Method: Thirty-five older adults and 50 younger adults completed anexperimenter-controlled online banking measure in which they independentlyperformed a series of naturalistic financial tasks (e.g., account transfers, bill paying).Participants also completed a standardized battery of neuropsychological tests andmeasures of functional capacity. Results: Older adults were markedly slower and lessaccurate in completing the Internet-based banking task, which was not confounded byother demographic, mood, or computer use factors. Higher scores on measures ofneurocognition and financial functional capacity were both strongly associated withhigher Internet-based banking task accuracy scores and quicker completion times inthe older, but not the younger adults. Conclusions: Findings suggest that older adultsexperience difficultly quickly and accurately navigating online banking platforms, whichmay be partly related to age-related declines in neurocognitive functions and basicfinancial capacity. Future studies might examine whether neurocognitive approaches toremediation and compensation can be used to improve online banking capacity inolder adults.

scholarly journals Positive Emodiversity Buffers the Association Between Stress and Depressive Symptoms

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 653-653
Author(s):  
Lizbeth Benson ◽  
Anthony Ong
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Depressive Symptoms ◽  
Life Span ◽  
Daily Diary ◽  
National Study ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Shannon's Entropy ◽  
Daily Experiences ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Optimal Functioning

Abstract Intensive measurements of individuals’ experiences allow for identifying patterns of functioning that may be markers of resilience, and whether such patterns differ across the life span. Using 8 daily diary reports collected in the second burst of the National Study of Daily Experiences (NSDE, n=848, age 34-84; 55%female), we examined whether positive emodiversity (Shannon’s entropy) attenuated the association between cumulative stressor exposure and depressive symptoms, and age-related differences therein. Results indicated age moderated the extent to which positive emodiversity attenuated the association between stress and depressive symptoms (b=0.11, p < .05). The attenuated association was strongest for younger adults with higher positive emodiversity, compared to those with lower positive emodiversity. For older adults, the association between stress and depressive symptoms was relatively similar regardless of their positive emodiversity. Implications pertain to for whom and in what contexts specific types of dynamic emotion experiences may promote optimal functioning and resilience.

scholarly journals The effect of age on postural and cognitive task performance while using vibrotactile feedback

2015 ◽  
Vol 113 (7) ◽  
pp. 2127-2136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chia-Cheng Lin ◽  
Susan L. Whitney ◽  
Patrick J. Loughlin ◽  
Joseph M. Furman ◽  
Mark S. Redfern ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Cognitive Performance ◽  
Center Of Pressure ◽  
Cognitive Task ◽  
Balance Performance ◽  
Vibrotactile Feedback ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Trunk Tilt ◽  
Effect Of Age

Vibrotactile feedback (VTF) has been shown to improve balance performance in healthy people and people with vestibular disorders in a single-task experimental condition. It is unclear how age-related changes in balance affect the ability to use VTF and if there are different attentional requirements for old and young adults when using VTF. Twenty younger and 20 older subjects participated in this two-visit study to examine the effect of age, VTF, sensory condition, cognitive task, duration of time, and visit on postural and cognitive performance. Postural performance outcome measures included root mean square of center of pressure (COP) and trunk tilt, and cognitive performance was assessed using the reaction time (RT) from an auditory choice RT task. The results showed that compared with younger adults, older adults had an increase in COP in fixed platform conditions when using VTF, although they were able to reduce COP during sway-referenced platform conditions. Older adults also did not benefit fully from using VTF in their first session. The RTs for the secondary cognitive tasks increased significantly while using the VTF in both younger and older adults. Older adults had a larger increase compared with younger adults, suggesting that greater attentional demands were required in older adults when using VTF information. Future training protocols for VTF should take into consideration the effect of aging.

Age Differences in the Social Associative Learning of Trust Information

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.

scholarly journals Adult age differences in subjective responses to dynamic socioemotional incentives

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sade J Abiodun ◽  
Galen McAllister ◽  
Gregory Russell Samanez-Larkin ◽  
Kendra Leigh Seaman
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Emotional Valence ◽  
Incentive Motivation ◽  
Social Signals ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Positivity Effect ◽  
Adult Age ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Adult Age Differences

Facial expressions are powerful communicative social signals that motivate feelings and action in the observer. However, research on incentive motivation has overwhelmingly focused on money and points and the limited research on social incentives has been mostly focused on responses in young adulthood. Previous research on the age-related positivity effect and adult age differences in social motivation suggest that older adults might experience higher levels of positive arousal to socioemotional stimuli than younger adults. Affect ratings following dynamic emotional expressions (anger, happiness, sadness) varying in magnitude of expression showed that higher magnitude expressions elicited higher arousal and valence ratings. Older adults did not differ significantly in levels of arousal when compared to younger adults, however their ratings of emotional valence were significantly higher as the magnitude of expressions increased. The findings provide novel evidence that socioemotional incentives may be relatively more reinforcing as adults age. More generally, these dynamic socioemotional stimuli that vary in magnitude are ideal for future studies of more naturalistic affect elicitation, studies of social incentive processing, and use in incentive-driven choice tasks.

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