Effectiveness of Self-Generated Cues in Younger and Older Adults: The Role of Retention Interval

1988 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 241-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lars Bäckman ◽  
Timo Mäntylä

Younger and older participants generated one or three properties to a set of forty nouns. Immediately after, one week after, or three weeks after this generation phase, the participants received an incidental recall test, in which they were cued with their self-generated properties, and requested to recall the nouns. Although the younger adults recalled more nouns than the older participants in all conditions, both age groups exhibited an extremely high level of immediate recall. In addition, younger and older adults did not differ with respect to the forgetting rate, and both age groups recalled more nouns when three, as compared to one, properties were provided as cues. It is suggested that cue effectiveness is optimized both for younger and older adults when the cues describing the information encoded are compatible and distinctive. Finally, it is emphasized that the individual's idiosyncratic knowledge may serve an important function in attempts at optimizing memory performance of elderly people.

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S305-S305
Author(s):  
Jenessa C Steele ◽  
Amanda Chappell ◽  
Rachel Scott

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.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S787-S787
Author(s):  
Anna E Kornadt ◽  
Catherine E Bowen ◽  
Svenja M Spuling ◽  
Maja Wiest

Abstract Using questionnaire data from the MIDUS study (N=6.325) we examined the extent to which people in their late 20s, 40s, and 60s think that positive stereotypic “old” and “young” characteristics describe themselves, their age peers, and other age groups. A constellation of “old” characteristics (e.g., wise, caring, calm) was seen as more descriptive of older adults, while a constellation of “young” characteristics (e.g., healthy, energetic) was seen as more descriptive of younger adults. Self-evaluations were highly positive and largely consistent across age groups. Compared to their age peers, younger adults saw themselves as having as many positive “young” characteristics but more positive “old” characteristics whereas older adults saw themselves as having more positive “young” characteristics but fewer positive “old” characteristics. The results support the stability of the aging self despite the existence of age stereotypes and the role of negative age stereotypes as a frame of reference for making self-evaluations.


2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (7) ◽  
pp. 1196-1213
Author(s):  
Alicia Forsberg ◽  
Wendy Johnson ◽  
Robert H. Logie

Abstract The decline of working memory (WM) is a common feature of general cognitive decline, and visual and verbal WM capacity appear to decline at different rates with age. Visual material may be remembered via verbal codes or visual traces, or both. Souza and Skóra, Cognition, 166, 277–297 (2017) found that labeling boosted memory in younger adults by activating categorical visual long-term memory (LTM) knowledge. Here, we replicated this and tested whether it held in healthy older adults. We compared performance in silence, under instructed overt labeling (participants were asked to say color names out loud), and articulatory suppression (repeating irrelevant syllables to prevent labeling) in the delayed estimation paradigm. Overt labeling improved memory performance in both age groups. However, comparing the effect of overt labeling and suppression on the number of coarse, categorical representations in the two age groups suggested that older adults used verbal labels subvocally more than younger adults, when performing the task in silence. Older adults also appeared to benefit from labels differently than younger adults. In younger adults labeling appeared to improve visual, continuous memory, suggesting that labels activated visual LTM representations. However, for older adults, labels did not appear to enhance visual, continuous representations, but instead boosted memory via additional verbal (categorical) memory traces. These results challenged the assumption that visual memory paradigms measure the same cognitive ability in younger and older adults, and highlighted the importance of controlling differences in age-related strategic preferences in visual memory tasks.


Author(s):  
S Enriquez-Geppert ◽  
J F Flores-Vázquez ◽  
M Lietz ◽  
M Garcia-Pimenta ◽  
P Andrés

Abstract Objective The Face-Name Associative Memory test (FNAME) has recently received attention as a test for early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. So far, however, there has been no systematic investigation of the effects of aging. Here, we aimed to assess the extent to which the FNAME performance is modulated by normal ageing. Method In a first step, we adapted the FNAME material to the Dutch population. In a second step, younger (n = 29) and older adults (n = 29) were compared on recall and recognition performance. Results Significant age effects on name recall were observed after the first exposure of new face-name pairs: younger adults remembered eight, whereas older adults remembered a mean of four out of twelve names. Although both age groups increased the number of recalled names with repeated face-name exposure, older adults did not catch up with the performance of the younger adults, and the age-effects remained stable. Despite of that, both age groups maintained their performance after a 30-min delay. Considering recognition, no age differences were demonstrated, and both age groups succeeded in the recognition of previously shown faces and names when presented along with distractors. Conclusions This study presents for the first time the results of different age groups regarding cross-modal associative memory performance on the FNAME. The recall age effects support the hypothesis of age-related differences in associative memory. To use the FNAME as an early cognitive biomarker, further subscales are suggested to increase sensitivity and specificity in the clinical context.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. e0247047
Author(s):  
Alexandra M. Freund ◽  
Martin J. Tomasik

Three studies tested the role of prioritization in solving conflict between multiple goals in different age groups. Study 1 (N = 185 young, middle-aged, older adults) stressed the importance to solve two competing tasks equally well within a short time. Older adults prioritized more than younger adults. However, contrary to our expectations, prioritization led to higher perceived conflict, more negative affect, and less control. Study 2 (N = 117 younger and older adults) found that, using a more lenient instruction, deemphasizing the importance of performing equally well on both tasks, prioritization was no longer associated with perceived goal conflict. Study 3 (N = 721 young, middle-aged, older adults) was an online study using hypothetical scenarios. This study was run to substantiate the potential mechanism underlying the differences between Study 1 and 2 and supported the hypothesized effect of the instructional strictness of pursuing two goals. Thus, when encountering conflicting goals older adults prioritize more than younger adults, but prioritization might not be optimal for solving short-term goal conflict when both conflicting goals are equally important.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandria C. Zakrzewski ◽  
Edie C. Sanders ◽  
Jane M. Berry

Research suggests that metacognitive monitoring ability does not decline with age. For example, judgments-of-learning (JOL) accuracy is roughly equivalent between younger and older adults. But few studies have asked whether younger and older adults’ metacognitive ability varies across different types of memory processes (e.g., for items vs. pairs). The current study tested the relationship between memory and post-decision confidence ratings at the trial level on item (individual words) and associative (word pairs) memory recognition tests. As predicted, younger and older adults had similar metacognitive efficiency, when using meta-d’/d’, a measure derived from Signal Detection Theory, despite a significant age effect favoring younger adults on memory performance. This result is consistent with previous work showing age-equivalent metacognitive efficiency in the memory domain. We also found that metacognitive efficiency was higher for associative memory than for item memory across age groups, even though associative and item recognition memory (d’) were statistically equivalent. Higher accuracy on post-test decision confidence ratings for associative recognition relative to item recognition on resolution accuracy itself (meta-d’) and when corrected for performance differences (meta-d’/d’) are novel findings. Implications for associative metacognition are discussed.


2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katlyn Engebretsen ◽  
Rachel Hartman ◽  
David Beukelman ◽  
Karen Hux

The purpose of this preliminary investigation was to explore the role photographs play in communication interactions involving neurotypical adults. Participants included 10 people from 2 age groups: younger adults between 23 and 25 years of age and older adults between 61 and 74 years of age. Referencing photographs to support one-on-one conversations between an examiner and either a younger or older neurotypical adult speaker occurred approximately 20% of the time. Younger participants relied solely on nonverbal communication in the form of a pointing gesture to convey their intent less than 2% of the time, whereas older participants never relied solely on pointing gestures to convey intent. This suggests that typical speakers treat the referencing of photographs as a supplemental rather than primary communication strategy during face-to-face interactions.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S124-S125
Author(s):  
Yang Li ◽  
Jan Mutchler

Abstract Adequate economic resources ensure that older adults’ basic needs are met and facilitate a healthier lifestyle. Hardship signals unfulfilled needs experienced by individuals lacking adequate economic resources. Despite well-documented associations between indicators of hardship and self-rated health, little is known about whether hardship has the same impact on self-rated health across age groups. The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between hardship and self-rated health among older adults and determine whether this association differed by age. Employing data from the 2014 Survey of Income and Program Participation, we conducted logistic regression analysis to examine the association between hardship and self-rated health among adults age 55 and older in the United States, and the moderating effect of age on this relationship. Analyses were weighted using replicate weights provided by the survey. Indicators of hardship were dichotomized (1 = experienced hardship, 0 = no hardship). Analyses indicated that individuals who were unable to pay utility bills, unable to pay rent or mortgage, or who experienced food insecurity had lower odds of reporting good/very good/excellent health relative to those not experiencing these hardships. The association between hardship and self-rated health was shown to be less substantial among the oldest cohort (age 75 and older) relative to younger adults. Hardship is directly relevant to health outcomes as it represents the consequence of unfulfilled needs experienced by individuals lacking adequate economic resources. This study contributes to our understanding of the role of age in the association between hardship and self-rated health.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Diamond ◽  
Hervé Abdi ◽  
Brian Levine

To bridge the gap between naturalistic and laboratory assessments of episodic memory, we designed time- and content-matched real-world and virtualized versions of the same tour event. In younger and older adults, we investigated objective and subjective aspects of recollection for event features using a verbal true/false test common to both event conditions. Using a data-driven multivariate analysis blind to the age groups and event conditions, we found that discrimination of altered details explained most of the variance in objective memory performance. There was an advantage for real-world over laboratory encoding on this dimension for both age groups. Similarly, real-world encoding elicited higher scores on a dimension defined by subjective re-experiencing. However, real-world (but not laboratory) encoding decoupled objective and subjective memory in older adults, who reported similar rates of subjective recollection as younger adults despite having objectively poorer discrimination accuracy. This interaction suggests that episodic memory for real-world versus laboratory events recruit distinct component processes.


Author(s):  
Rachel O Coats ◽  
Amanda H Waterman ◽  
Fiona Ryder ◽  
Amy L Atkinson ◽  
Richard J Allen

Abstract Objectives In young adults, the ability to verbally recall instructions in working memory is enhanced if the sequences are physically enacted by the participant (self-enactment) or the experimenter (demonstration) during encoding. Here we examine the effects of self-enactment and demonstration at encoding on working memory performance in older and younger adults. Method Fifty young (18–23 years) and 40 older (60–89 years) adults listened to sequences of novel action-object pairs before verbally recalling them in the correct order. There were three different encoding conditions: spoken only, spoken + demonstration, and spoken + self-enactment. We included two different levels of difficulty to investigate whether task complexity moderated the effect of encoding condition and whether this differed between age groups. Results Relative to the spoken only condition, demonstration significantly improved young and older adults’ serial recall performance, but self-enactment only enhanced performance in the young adults, and this boost was smaller than the one gained through demonstration. Discussion Our findings suggest that additional spatial-motoric information is beneficial for older adults when the actions are demonstrated to them, but not when the individual must enact the instructions themselves.


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