scholarly journals Knowledge guides attention to goal-relevant information in older adults

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maverick E. Smith ◽  
Lester C. Loschky ◽  
Heather R. Bailey
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Free Recall ◽  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Semantic Knowledge ◽  
Attention And Memory ◽  
Everyday Activities ◽  
Age Related

AbstractHow does viewers’ knowledge guide their attention while they watch everyday events, how does it affect their memory, and does it change with age? Older adults have diminished episodic memory for everyday events, but intact semantic knowledge. Indeed, research suggests that older adults may rely on their semantic memory to offset impairments in episodic memory, and when relevant knowledge is lacking, older adults’ memory can suffer. Yet, the mechanism by which prior knowledge guides attentional selection when watching dynamic activity is unclear. To address this, we studied the influence of knowledge on attention and memory for everyday events in young and older adults by tracking their eyes while they watched videos. The videos depicted activities that older adults perform more frequently than young adults (balancing a checkbook, planting flowers) or activities that young adults perform more frequently than older adults (installing a printer, setting up a video game). Participants completed free recall, recognition, and order memory tests after each video. We found age-related memory deficits when older adults had little knowledge of the activities, but memory did not differ between age groups when older adults had relevant knowledge and experience with the activities. Critically, results showed that knowledge influenced where viewers fixated when watching the videos. Older adults fixated less goal-relevant information compared to young adults when watching young adult activities, but they fixated goal-relevant information similarly to young adults, when watching more older adult activities. Finally, results showed that fixating goal-relevant information predicted free recall of the everyday activities for both age groups. Thus, older adults may use relevant knowledge to more effectively infer the goals of actors, which guides their attention to goal-relevant actions, thus improving their episodic memory for everyday activities.

Age moderation of the association between negative subsequent memory effects and episodic memory performance

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Pruitt ◽  
Lingfei Tang ◽  
Jessica Hayes ◽  
Noa Ofen ◽  
Jessica S. Damoiseaux
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Functional Neuroimaging ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Memory Formation ◽  
Memory Effects ◽  
Age Related

Negative subsequent memory effects in functional MRI studies of memory formation, have been linked to individual differences in memory performance, yet the effect of age on this association is currently unclear. To provide insight into the brain systems related to memory across the lifespan, we examined functional neuroimaging data acquired during episodic memory formation and behavioral performance from a memory recognition task in a sample of 109 participants, including three developmental age groups (8-12, 13-17, 18-25 year-olds) and one additional group of older adults (55-85 year-olds). Young adults showed the highest memory performance and strongest negative subsequent memory effects, while older adults showed reduced negative subsequent memory effects relative to young adults. Across the sample, negative subsequent memory effects were associated with better memory performance, and there was a significant interaction between negative subsequent memory effects and memory performance by age groups. Posthoc analyses revealed that this effect was driven by a strong association between negative subsequent memory effects and memory performance in adolescents and young adults, but not in children and older adults. These findings suggest that negative subsequent memory effects may differentially support memory performance across a lifespan trajectory characterized by developmental maturation and age-related deterioration.

Changes in the Dynamic Stability of Walking in Active Healthy Older Adults Independent of Changes in Walking Speed

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyun Gu Kang ◽  
Jonathan B. Dingwell
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Dynamic Stability ◽  
Walking Speed ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Leg Strength ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Increased Risk ◽  
Risk Of Falls ◽  
Walking Speeds

Older adults commonly walk slower, which many believe helps improve their walking stability. However, they remain at increased risk of falls. We investigated how differences in age and walking speed independently affect dynamic stability during walking, and how age-related changes in leg strength and ROM affected this relationship. Eighteen active healthy older and 17 younger adults walked on a treadmill for 5 minutes each at each of 5 speeds (80–120% of preferred). Local divergence exponents and maximum Floquet multipliers (FM) were calculated to quantify each subject’s responses to small inherent perturbations during walking. These older adults exhibited the same preferred walking speeds as the younger subjects (p = 0.860). However, these older adults still exhibited greater local divergence exponents (p<0.0001) and higher maximum FM (p<0.007) than young adults at all walking speeds. These older adults remained more unstable (p<0.04) even after adjusting for declines in both strength and ROM. In both age groups, local divergence exponents decreased at slower speeds and increased at faster speeds (p<0.0001). Maximum FM showed similar changes with speed (p<0.02). The older adults in this study were healthy enough to walk at normal speeds. However, these adults were still more unstable than the young adults, independent of walking speed. This greater instability was not explained by loss of leg strength and ROM. Slower speeds led to decreased instability in both groups.

scholarly journals Contingency of semantic generalization on episodic specificity: Variations across development

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chi Ngo ◽  
Susan L. Benear ◽  
Haroon Popal ◽  
Ingrid R. Olson ◽  
Nora Newcombe
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Knowledge Acquisition ◽  
Computational Models ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Semantic Knowledge ◽  
Very Young Children ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Specific Identity

Popular computational models of memory have posited that the formation of new semantic knowledge relies on generalization from memories of specific but related episodes, at least when it occurs rapidly. This view predicts a contingency between new generalizations and episodic memory. However, very young children readily accumulate semantic knowledge at a time when their episodic memory capacities are fragile. This phenomenon challenges the notion that semantic knowledge acquisition and rapid generalization are necessarily gated by episodic memory. Here, we tested whether generalization depends on memory for individual episodes in children from 3 to 8 years of age and contrasted their performance with adults. We found that the interdependence of generalization and episodic memory changed across development. Young adults’ generalization success was contingent on their memories for an item linked to its episodic context. In contrast, generalization by young children was contingent on memories of the specific identity of items and the availability of the conceptual common ground linking related episodes. This age-related contrast favors models of memory that can account for the relations between rapid generalization and episodic memory in immature systems.

scholarly journals Differences Between Young and Older Adults in Working Memory and Performance on the Test of Basic Auditory Capabilities†

2022 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larry E. Humes ◽  
Gary R. Kidd ◽  
Jennifer J. Lentz
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Hearing Loss ◽  
Auditory Processing ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Age Group ◽  
Regression Analyses ◽  
Age Related

The Test of Basic Auditory Capabilities (TBAC) is a battery of auditory-discrimination tasks and speech-identification tasks that has been normed on several hundred young normal-hearing adults. Previous research with the TBAC suggested that cognitive function may impact the performance of older adults. Here, we examined differences in performance on several TBAC tasks between a group of 34 young adults with a mean age of 22.5 years (SD = 3.1 years) and a group of 115 older adults with a mean age of 69.2 years (SD = 6.2 years) recruited from the local community. Performance of the young adults was consistent with prior norms for this age group. Not surprisingly, the two groups differed significantly in hearing loss and working memory with the older adults having more hearing loss and poorer working memory than the young adults. The two age groups also differed significantly in performance on six of the nine measures extracted from the TBAC (eight test scores and one average test score) with the older adults consistently performing worse than the young adults. However, when these age-group comparisons were repeated with working memory and hearing loss as covariates, the groups differed in performance on only one of the nine auditory measures from the TBAC. For eight of the nine TBAC measures, working memory was a significant covariate and hearing loss never emerged as a significant factor. Thus, the age-group deficits observed initially on the TBAC most often appeared to be mediated by age-related differences in working memory rather than deficits in auditory processing. The results of these analyses of age-group differences were supported further by linear-regression analyses with each of the 9 TBAC scores serving as the dependent measure and age, hearing loss, and working memory as the predictors. Regression analyses were conducted for the full set of 149 adults and for just the 115 older adults. Working memory again emerged as the predominant factor impacting TBAC performance. It is concluded that working memory should be considered when comparing the performance of young and older adults on auditory tasks, including the TBAC.

scholarly journals Behavioral and fMRI evidence that arousal enhances bottom-up attention and memory selectivity in young but not older adults

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara N Gallant ◽  
Briana L Kennedy ◽  
Shelby L Bachman ◽  
Ringo Huang ◽  
Tae-Ho Lee ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Noradrenergic System ◽  
Attention And Memory ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Selective Processing ◽  
The Brain

During a challenge or emotional experience, increases in arousal help us focus on the most salient or relevant details and ignore distracting stimuli. The noradrenergic system integrates signals about arousal states throughout the brain and helps coordinate this adaptive attentional selectivity. However, age-related changes in the noradrenergic system and attention networks in the brain may reduce the efficiency of arousal to modulate selective processing in older adults. In the current neuroimaging study, we examined age differences in how arousal affects bottom-up attention to category-selective stimuli differing in perceptual salience. We found a dissociation in how arousal modulates selective processing in the young and older brain. In young adults, emotionally arousing sounds enhanced selective incidental memory and brain activity in the extrastriate body area for salient versus non-salient images of bodies. Older adults showed no such advantage in selective processing under arousal. These age differences could not be attributed to changes in the arousal response or less neural distinctiveness in old age. Rather, our results suggest that, relative to young adults, older adults become less effective at focusing on salient over non-salient details during increases in emotional arousal.

Production Improves Visual and Auditory Text Memory in Younger and Older Adults

Gerontology ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Michal Icht ◽  
Riki Taitelbaum-Swead ◽  
Yaniv Mama
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Superior Performance ◽  
Structured Learning ◽  
Auditory Modality ◽  
No Production ◽  
Text Memory

<b><i>Introduction:</i></b> The production effect refers to memory benefits for materials that were produced (e.g., read aloud) relative to not produced (e.g., read silently) at study. Previous works have found a production benefit for younger and older adults studying written words and for young adults studying written text. The present study aimed to extend these findings by examining the effect of production on text memory in younger and older adults, in the visual, and in the auditory modalities. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> A group of young adults (<i>n</i> = 30) and a group of older adults (<i>n</i> = 30) learned informational texts, presented either visually or aurally. In each text, half of the sentences were learned by production (reading aloud or writing) and half by no production (reading silently or listening), followed by fill-in-the-blank tests. <b><i>Results:</i></b> An overall memory performance was found to be similar for both groups, with an advantage for the auditory modality. For both groups, more test items were filled in correctly when the relevant information appeared in the produced than in nonproduced sentences, showing the learners’ ability to use distinctiveness information. The production effects were larger for older than younger adults, in both modalities. <b><i>Discussion:</i></b> Since older adults are increasingly engage in learning, it is important to develop high-quality structured learning programs for this population. The current results demonstrate the preserved ability of older adults to successfully memorize texts and may guide planning of such programs. Specifically, since learning via the auditory modality yields superior performance for learners across age-groups, it may be recommended for text learning. Because older adults showed larger benefits from active production of the study material, it may be used to better remember educationally relevant material.

Abstract TP244: Age-Related Disparities in Door-to-Needle Times: It’s Not What You Think

Stroke ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 48 (suppl_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian J Burrell ◽  
Kristin P Guilliams ◽  
Jennifer A Williams ◽  
Laura Heitsch ◽  
Peter Panagos ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Adult Population ◽  
Univariate Analysis ◽  
Multivariable Analysis ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Retrospective Chart Review ◽  
Stroke Mimics ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Forward Stepwise

Introduction: Delays in door-to-needle time (DNT) for tPA administration are associated with worse outcomes after acute ischemic stroke (AIS). Studies suggest tPA is safe and effective in young adults, though the effect of age on timeliness of tPA decision making is unknown. In the young adult population, lower frequency of stroke and higher frequency of stroke mimics may lead to DNT delays. We tested the hypothesis that DNT are longer in young adults with AIS. Methods: From 1/2009 to 3/2016, patient demographics and tPA metrics were prospectively collected on all tPA-treated patients at a large, urban academic hospital. Discharge diagnosis (including stroke mimics) and symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage (sICH) rates were collected by retrospective chart review. DNT was compared between young (age ≤ 45) and older adults (age > 45) and across four age groups: ≤45, 46-65, 66-85, and ≥86. Univariate analysis evaluated associations between DNT and baseline characteristics (age, race, sex, admission year, onset-to-arrival time, and admission NIHSS), followed by forward stepwise linear regression including variables with P<0.2 on univariate analysis. Results: Of 560 patients treated with tPA, 63 (11%) were age ≤45 and 497 (89%) were age > 45. Mean DNT was 63 minutes in young adults compared to 50 minutes in older adults (P=0.002). Across four age groups, DNTs were longer in young adults (P=0.027, Figure). In multivariable analysis, age ≤45 (P=0.012), lower NIHSS (P=0.006), and more remote admission year (P=0.001) independently predicted longer DNT. Stroke mimics were more frequent in young adults: 32% vs 7% (P<0.001), though mean DNT remained longer in young adults after excluding mimics: 63 vs 49 min (P=0.008). sICH rate was similar in both groups: 0% vs 4.2% (p=0.10). Conclusions: Despite established safety and efficacy of tPA in young adults, we found DNT delays in this population. Further studies are needed to confirm this finding and address age-related disparities in DNT.

scholarly journals The ERP correlates of self-knowledge in ageing

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annick F. N. Tanguay ◽  
Ann-Kathrin Johnen ◽  
Ioanna Markostamou ◽  
Rachel Lambert ◽  
Megan Rudrum ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Personality Traits ◽  
Semantic Processing ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Semantic Knowledge ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
General Semantic

AbstractSelf-knowledge is a type of personal semantic knowledge that concerns one’s self-image and personal identity. It has most often been operationalized as the summary of one’s personality traits (“I am a stubborn person”). Interestingly, recent studies have revealed that the neural correlates of self-knowledge can be dissociated from those of general semantic and episodic memory in young adults. However, studies of “dedifferentiation” or loss of distinctiveness of neural representations in ageing suggest that the neural correlates of self-knowledge might be less distinct from those of semantic and episodic memory in older adults. We investigated this question in an event-related potential (ERP) study with 28 young and 26 older adults while they categorised personality traits for their self-relevance (self-knowledge conditions), and their relevance to certain groups of people (general semantic condition). Participants then performed a recognition test for previously seen traits (episodic condition). The amplitude of the late positive component (LPC), associated with episodic recollection processes, differentiated the self-knowledge, general semantic, and episodic conditions in young adults, but not in older adults. However, in older adults, participants with higher composite episodic memory scores had more differentiated LPC amplitudes across experimental conditions. Moreover, consistent with the fact that age-related neural dedifferentiation may be material and region specific, in both age groups some differences between memory types were observed for the N400 component, associated with semantic processing. Taken together, these findings suggest that declarative memory subtypes are less distinct in ageing, but that the amount of differentiation varies with episodic memory function.

scholarly journals Differential brain activity in visuo-perceptual regions during landmark-based navigation in young and healthy older adults

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Ramanoël ◽  
Marion Durteste ◽  
Marcia Bécu ◽  
Christophe Habas ◽  
Angelo Arleo
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Retrosplenial Cortex ◽  
Central Visual Field ◽  
Cortical Projection ◽  
Age Related ◽  
The Impact

AbstractOlder adults exhibit prominent impairments in their capacity to navigate, reorient in unfamiliar environments or update their path when faced with obstacles. This decline in navigational capabilities has traditionally been ascribed to memory impairments and dysexecutive function whereas the impact of visual aging has often been overlooked. The ability to perceive visuo-spatial information such as salient landmarks is essential to navigate in space efficiently. To date, the functional and neurobiological factors underpinning landmark processing in aging remain insufficiently characterized. To address this issue, this study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the brain activity associated with landmark-based navigation in young and healthy older participants. Twenty-five young adults (μ=25.4 years, σ=4.7; 7F) and twenty-one older adults (μ=73.0 years, σ=3.9; 10F) performed a virtual navigation task in the scanner in which they could only orient using salient landmarks. The underlying whole-brain patterns of activity as well as the functional roles of scene-selective regions, the parahippocampal place area (PPA), the occipital place area (OPA), and the retrosplenial cortex (RSC) were analyzed. We found that older adults’ navigational abilities were diminished compared to young adults’ and that the two age groups relied on distinct navigational strategies to solve the task. Better performance during landmark-based navigation was found to be associated with increased neural activity in an extended neural network comprising several cortical and cerebellar regions. Direct comparisons between age groups further revealed that young participants had enhanced anterior temporal activity. In addition, young adults only were found to recruit occipital areas corresponding to the cortical projection of the central visual field during landmark-based navigation. The region-of-interest analysis revealed increased OPA activation in older adult participants. There were no significant between-group differences in PPA and RSC activations. These results hint at the possibility that aging diminishes fine-grained information processing in occipital and temporal regions thus hindering the capacity to use landmarks adequately for navigation. This work helps towards a better comprehension of the neural dynamics subtending landmark-based navigation and it provides new insights on the impact of age-related visuo-spatial processing changes on navigation capabilities.

scholarly journals Aging and Inhibition of Return to Locations and Objects

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Asenath X. A. Huether ◽  
Linda K. Langley ◽  
Laura E. Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Cognitive Aging ◽  
Inhibition Of Return ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Partial Support ◽  
Cognitive Mechanism ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Object Based ◽  
Age Patterns

Inhibition of return (IOR) is thought to reflect a cognitive mechanism that biases attention from returning to previously engaged items. While models of cognitive aging have proposed deficits within select inhibitory domains, older adults have demonstrated preserved IOR functioning in previous studies. The present study investigated whether inhibition associated with objects shows the same age patterns as inhibition associated with locations. Young adults (18–22 years) and older adults (60–86 years) were tested in two experiments measuring location- and object-based IOR. Using a dynamic paradigm (Experiment 1), both age groups produced significant location-based IOR, but only young adults produced significant object-based IOR, consistent with previous findings. However, with a static paradigm (Experiment 2), young adults and older adults produced both location- and object-based IOR, indicating that object-based IOR is preserved in older adults under some conditions. The findings provide partial support for unique age-related inhibitory patterns associated with attention to objects and locations.

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