scholarly journals Influences of complexity on decision making in young and older adults

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 280-299
Author(s):  
Stephen P. Badham ◽  
Calum A. Hamilton
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Amount Of Information ◽  
Related Information ◽  
Complex Information ◽  
Age Deficits ◽  
Inform Decision Making

Leading theory hypothesizes that age deficits in decision making may rise as the complexity of decision-related information increases. This suggests that older adults would benefit relative to young adults from simplification of information used to inform decision making. Participants indicated political, nutritional and medical preferences and then chose between politicians, foods and medicines. The amount of information presented was systematically varied but age differences were largely similar for simple and complex trials. Paradoxically, the data showed that decisions based on simpler information could be less aligned with participant’s preferences than decisions based on more complex information. Further analyses suggested that participants may have been responding purely on the basis of their most valued preferences and that when information about those preferences was not presented, decision making became poorer. Contrary to our expectations, simplification of information by exclusion may therefore hinder decision making and may not particularly help older adults.

scholarly journals Age Differences in Executive Control Assessed with a Robotic Object Hit and Avoid Test of Rapid Motor Decision Making

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 881-882
Author(s):  
Alexandra Watral ◽  
Kevin Trewartha
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Executive Functioning ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Test Performance ◽  
Cognitive Status ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Neuropsychological Tasks ◽  
Measures Of Performance

Abstract Motor decision-making processes are required for many standard neuropsychological tasks, including the Trail Making Test (TMT), that aim to assess cognitive functioning in older adults. However, in their standard formats, it is difficult to isolate the relative contributions of sensorimotor and cognitive processes to performance on these neuropsychological tasks. Recently developed clinical tasks use a robotic manipulandum to assess both motor and cognitive aspects of rapid motor decision making in an object hit (OH) and object hit and avoid (OHA) task. We administered the OH and OHA tasks to 77 healthy younger adults and 59 healthy older adults to assess age differences in the motor and cognitive measures of performance. We administered the TMT parts A and B to assess the extent to which OHA performance is associated with executive functioning in particular. The results indicate that after controlling for hand speed, older adults performed worse on the OH and OHA tasks than younger adults, performance declines were far greater in the OHA task, and the global performance measures, which have been associated with cognitive status, were more sensitive to age differences than motor measures of performance. Those global measures of performance were also associated with measures of executive functioning on the TMT task. These findings provide evidence that rapid motor decision making tasks are sensitive to declines in executive control in aging. They also provide a way to isolate cognitive declines from declines in sensorimotor processes that are likely a contributing factor to age differences in neuropsychological test performance.

scholarly journals EXPLORING AGE, GENDER, AND RELATIONSHIP CLOSENESS DIFFERENCES IN RESPONSES TO IGNORED DISRESPECT

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S305-S305
Author(s):  
Jenessa C Steele ◽  
Amanda Chappell ◽  
Rachel Scott
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Emotional Responses ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Relationship Closeness ◽  
Close Condition

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.

scholarly journals Who Is Willing to Engage in Social Gatherings During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Lockdown? A Curvilinear Relationship Between Age and Heuristic Processing

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kexin Wang ◽  
Siyue Li
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Underlying Mechanism ◽  
Curvilinear Relationship ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Demographic Information ◽  
Online Questionnaire ◽  
Related Information ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Heuristic Processing

BackgroundThe Chinese government implemented a lockdown to contain the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic during the Chinese Lunar New Year when people have the tradition to visit families and friends. Previous research suggested that heuristic processing increased risky behavioral willingness (e.g., desire to have social gatherings despite the pandemic) and that people’s tendency to use heuristic processing varied across different adulthood stages. This study thus investigated the relationships among age, heuristic processing of COVID-19-related information, and the willingness to have social gatherings during the lockdown.MethodsA sample of 1,651 participants was recruited from an online crowdsourcing platform between January 31 and February 04 in 2020, with a mean age of 30.69, 47.9% being women. Participants completed an online questionnaire about heuristic processing of COVID-19-related information, willingness to engage in social gatherings during the lockdown, age, and other demographic information.ResultsAge was found to have a U-shaped curvilinear relationship with heuristic processing, and heuristic processing was positively correlated with the willingness to have social gatherings. Further analyses showed that heuristic processing curvilinearly mediated the relationship between age and the willingness to have social gatherings.ConclusionCompared with young adults, emerging and older adults are more likely to engage in heuristic processing, which in turn, increases the willingness to have social gatherings. Heuristic processing serves as an underlying mechanism to explain the relationship between age and risky behavioral willingness.

Age Differences in Source Monitoring and Referent Discrimination

2012 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trinidad Ruiz-Gallego-Largo ◽  
Teresa Simón ◽  
Aurora G. Suengas
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Source Monitoring ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
The Other ◽  
Reality Monitoring ◽  
Monitoring Framework ◽  
Effects Of Aging ◽  
Two Age Groups

In contrast to previous studies which addressed separately memory for source and referent, the present experiment analyzes the effects of aging on memory for both, source and referent. The experiment simulated a conversation between two people exchanging descriptors of themselves and the other speaker (e.g., “I am helpful,” “you are capable”). Participants (N = 60) were divided into two age groups: younger (M = 23.47 years old, SD = 2.37), older (M = 70.30 years old, SD = 3.73). Recall, recognition, and accuracy in identifying source (e.g., “who said helpful?”) and referent (e.g., “about whom was capable said?”) were analyzed. Younger and older adults recalled and recognized equally well information read by the experimenter about herself, but only young adults showed better memory for the descriptors they read about themselves. Older adults were impaired in source monitoring, but not in reference discrimination. Normal referent discrimination in older adults is attributed to the fact that the referent forms part of the content of the episode, whereas who spoke it is part of its context, and older adults tend to show greater deficits in context than in content memory. These results are explained within the source and reality monitoring framework.

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.

Age Differences and Similarities in Associated Stressors and Outcomes Among Young, Midlife, and Older Adult Family Caregivers

2020 ◽  
pp. 009141502090526
Author(s):  
Athena Koumoutzis ◽  
Kelly E. Cichy ◽  
Mary Dellmann-Jenkins ◽  
Maureen Blankemeyer
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Activities Of Daily Living ◽  
Caregiver Burden ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Daily Living ◽  
The United States ◽  
Financial Strain ◽  
Physical Strain ◽  
Emotional Strain

Background and Objectives Few studies have simultaneously compared caregivers in all stages of the adult life course. This study examined age differences in associations among primary stressors (caregiver burden which includes hours of provided care and number of activities of daily living and instrumental activities of daily living performed), secondary stressors (financial and employment strains), and caregiver outcomes (emotional strain and physical strain). Research Design Using Pearlin’s Stress Process Model (1990) and the Caregiving in the United States 2015 dataset, 1,156 caregivers were identified (including 278 young adults aged 18–39 years, 464 midlife adults aged 40–59 years, and 414 older adults aged 60–80 years). Results Post hoc analyses revealed that compared to older adults, young adults reported less caregiver burden, less physical strain, and greater financial strain. Linear regression analyses revealed associations between caregiver burden and financial strain with emotional and physical strain for all respondents. Discussion and Implications Findings emphasize the need for age-specific interventions.

Worry about quality of life for younger versus older adult thyroid cancer survivors.

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (27_suppl) ◽  
pp. 157-157
Author(s):  
Stefanie Marie Thomas ◽  
David Reyes-Gastelum ◽  
Joel Milam ◽  
Kimberly Ann Miller ◽  
Anamara Ritt-Olson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Thyroid Cancer ◽  
Side Effects ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Amount Of Information ◽  
Treatment Side Effects ◽  
Younger Age ◽  
Multivariable Analyses

157 Background: Thyroid cancer is one of the most common cancers in young adults, age 18-39 years. Since this population has distinct medical and developmental needs, it is important to understand age differences in worry about quality of life. Methods: Thyroid cancer patients diagnosed between 2014-15 were accrued from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results Program (SEER) registries of Georgia and Los Angeles County and surveyed between 2017-18. The primary outcome was patient reported worry about quality of life. Covariates for this analysis included age (categorized 18-25, 26-39, 40-64, and 65-79), involvement in surgical decision making (low, just right, high) and amount of information received on treatment side effects (low, just right, high). Race/ethnicity, sex, and tumor characteristics were also evaluated. Multivariable analyses were used to assess associations between worry about quality of life and independent variables. Results: In the cohort of 2,632 patients, 39.8% were somewhat to very much worried about quality of life not being the same as before thyroid cancer diagnosis, 15.1% reported low involvement in surgical decision making, and 32.6% reported low amount of information regarding side effects. Younger age was associated with high worry about quality of life (p < 0.001), low involvement in decision making (p < 0.001) and low amount of information on treatment side effects (p < 0.001). In multivariable analyses, high worry was significantly associated with female sex (Odds ratio [OR]: 1.29 95% confidence Interval [CI]:1.04-1.59), non-white, non-Hispanic race/ethnicity (OR: 1.64 CI: 1.38-1.95), positive lymph nodes (OR: 1.41 CI: 1.14-1.75) and younger age (ages 18-25 years OR: 2.34 CI: 1.45-3.76; ages 26-39 years OR: 2.26 CI: 1.68-3.05; and ages 40-64 years OR:1.94 CI 1.50-2.51). Age differences remained significant after adding either involvement in decision-making or information received. Conclusions: Young adults report higher worry about quality of life. Controlling for decision-making involvement or information received about side effects did not eliminate age differences in worry. Ongoing psychosocial support addressing quality of life worries among younger survivors is needed.

scholarly journals Information Avoidance in Decision Making: Do the Reasons Vary by Age?

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 364-364
Author(s):  
Stephanie Deng ◽  
Julia Nolte ◽  
Corinna Loeckenhoff
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Medical Decision ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Adult Lifespan ◽  
Information Avoidance ◽  
Highly Correlated

Abstract Older adults make up the majority of the U.S. patient population and age differences in information avoidance have potential implications for their ability to participate in informed medical decision making. Meta-analytic evidence suggests that older adults seek less information before making a decision than younger adults do (Mata & Nunes, 2010). However, age differences in explicit information avoidance have yet to be quantified. We hypothesized that older adults would avoid decision-relevant information more strongly than younger adults do. We also examined the self-reported reasons for information avoidance and hypothesized that older adults would express more concern about unwanted information influencing their affect (Reed & Carstensen, 2012) and decision preferences (Mather, 2006), both of which are known predictors of information avoidance (Woolley & Risen, 2018). To test these assumptions, we conducted a pre-registered online study involving three different health-related decision scenarios. For each scenario, an adult lifespan sample (N=195, Mage=52.95, 50% female, 71% non-Hispanic White) chose to either receive or avoid information. Responses were highly correlated across scenarios and results were pooled into a single avoidance measure. Analyses indicated that concerns about consequences for decision preferences positively predicted decision avoidance (p&lt;.001), whereas concerns about consequences for affect did not (p=.079). Contrary to predictions, older age was not significantly associated with information avoidance (p=.827). Further, self-reported concerns about the influence of unwanted information on affect and decision preferences were negatively associated with age (ps&lt;.001). This suggests that interventions to foster pre-decisional information seeking should be tailored to the target age group.

scholarly journals Age Differences in Negative, but Not Positive, Rumination

2019 ◽  
Vol 75 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Emery ◽  
Anne Sorrell ◽  
Cassidy Miles
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Strong Evidence ◽  
Null Hypothesis ◽  
Bayesian Analyses ◽  
Repetitive Thought ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Positive Rumination

Abstract Objectives The main objective of this study was to determine whether there are age differences in positive and negative repetitive thought (ie, rumination). Method Young adults (ages 19–39; n = 114) and older adults (ages 60–85; n = 88) completed measures of negative and positive rumination. Bayesian analyses were used to determine whether age differences were present for both negative (young &gt; old) and positive (old &gt; young) rumination. Results There was extremely strong evidence for age differences in negative rumination, with lower scores in older adults. In contrast, the evidence was in favor of the null hypothesis for positive rumination. Discussion Age-related positivity is better characterized as decreased dwelling on the meaning of negative moods, rather than increased attention to positive ones.

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