1: Physical and cognitive changes across the lifespan

Question 1

Addiction

Answer 1

A behavior pattern characterized by an overwhelming involvement with a drug and securing its supply.

Question 2

Realistic and pragmatic thinking

Answer 2

Some developmentalists propose that as young adults move into the world of work, their way of thinking does change. One idea is that as they face the constraints of reality, which work promotes, their idealism decreases.

Question 3

Reflective and relativistic thinking

Answer 3

William Perry (1999) also described changes in cognition that take place in early adulthood. He said that adolescents often view the world in terms of polarities—right/wrong, we/they, or good/bad. As youth age into adulthood, they gradually move away from this type of absolutist thinking as they become aware of the diverse opinions and multiple perspectives of others.

Expanding on Perry’s view, Gisela Labouvie-Vief (2006) recently proposed that the increasing complexity of cultures in the past century has generated a greater need for more refl ective, complex thinking that takes into account the changing nature of knowledge and challenges. She also emphasizes that the key aspects of cognitive development in emerging adulthood include deciding on a particular worldview, recognizing that the worldview is subjective, and understanding that diverse worldviews should be acknowledged. In her perspective, considerable individual variation characterizes the thinking of emerging adults, with the highest level of thinking attained by only some. She argues that the level of education emerging adults achieve especially infl uences how likely they will maximize their cognitive potential.

Question 4

Postformal thought

Answer 4

Some theorists have pieced together cognitive changes in young adults and proposed a new stage of cognitive development, postformal thought, which is qualitatively different from Piaget’s formal operational thought (Sinnott, 2003). Postformal thought involves understanding that the correct answer to a problem requires refl ective thinking and can vary from one situation to another, and that the search for truth is often an ongoing, never-ending process (Kitchener, King, & Deluca, 2006). Postformal thought also includes the belief that solutions to problems need to be realistic and that emotion and subjective factors can infl uence thinking.

Question 5

Mortality rates

Answer 5

Previously, infectious disease was the main cause of death. Now, as rates for infectious diseases have declined, and more individuals live through middle age, chronic disorders have increased and are now the main causes of death for individuals in middle adulthood.

In middle age, many deaths are caused by a single, readily identifiable condition. In old age, death is more likely to result from the combined effects of several chronic conditions.

Men have higher mortality rates than women for all leading causes of death.

Question 6

Climacteric

Answer 6

A term used to descrive the midlife transition in which fertility declines.

Question 7

Menopause

Answer 7

Menopause is the time in middle age, usually in the late forties or early fi fties, when a woman’s menstrual periods completely cease. The average age at which women have their last period is 51 (Wise, 2006). However, there is large variation in the age at which menopause occurs— from 39 to 59 years of age.

In menopause, production of estrogen by the ovaries declines dramatically, and this decline produces uncomfortable symptoms in some women—“hot fl ashes,” nausea, fatigue, and rapid heartbeat, for example.

Until recently, hormone replacement therapy was often prescribed as treatment for unpleasant side effects of menopause. Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) augments the declining levels of reproductive hormone production by the ovaries (Nappi & Polatti, 2009; Studd, 2010). HRT can consist of various forms of estrogen, and usually a progestin. A study of HRT’s effects was halted as evidence emerged that participants who were receiving HRT faced an increased risk of stroke.

Question 8

Perimenopause

Answer 8

Perimenopause is the transitional period from normal menstrual periods to no menstrual periods at all, which often takes up to 10 years (De Franciscis & others, 2007; Seritan & others, 2010). Perimenopause is most common in the forties but can occur in the thirties.

Question 9

Hormonal changes in middle-aged men

Answer 9

Do men go through anything like the menopause that women experience? That is, is there a male menopause? During middle adulthood, most men do not lose their capacity to father children, although there usually is a modest decline in their sexual hormone level and activity (Kohler & others, 2008). Men experience hormonal changes in their fi fties and sixties, but nothing like the dramatic drop in estrogen that women experience. Testosterone production begins to decline about 1 percent a year during middle adulthood, and sperm count usually shows a slow decline, although men do not lose their fertility in middle age.

Question 10

Fluid & crystallized intelligence

Answer 10

John Horn argues that some abilities begin to decline in middle age while others increase (Horn & Donaldson, 1980). Horn maintains that crystallized intelligence, an individual’s accumulated information and verbal skills, continues to increase in middle adulthood, whereas fl uid intelligence, one’s ability to reason abstractly, begins to decline in the middle adulthood years (see Figure 15.5).

Question 11

Speed of information processing

Answer 11

As we saw in Schaie’s (1994, 1996) Seattle Longitudinal Study, perceptual speed begins declining in early adulthood and continues to decline in middle adulthood. A common way to assess speed of information is through a reaction-time task, in which individuals simply press a button as soon as they see a light appear. Middle-aged adults are slower to push the button when the light appears than young adults are. However, keep in mind that the decline is not dramatic—under 1 second in most investigations.

Question 12

Memory

Answer 12

In Schaie’s (1994, 1996) Seattle Longitudinal Study, verbal memory peaked in the fi fties. However, in some other studies verbal memory has shown a decline in middle age, especially when assessed in cross-sectional studies (Salthouse, 2009). For example, in several studies when asked to remember lists of words, numbers, or meaningful prose, younger adults outperformed middle-aged adults (Salthouse & Skovronek, 1992). Although there still is some controversy about whether memory declines in the middle adulthood years, most experts conclude that it does decline

Cognitive aging expert Denise Park (2001) argues that starting in late middle age, more time is needed to learn new information. The slowdown in learning new information has been linked to changes in working memory, the mental “workbench” where individuals manipulate and assemble information when making decisions, solving problems, and comprehending written and spoken language (Baddeley, 2007). In this view, in late middle age working memory capacity—the amount of information that can be immediately retrieved and used—becomes more limited. Think of this situation as an overcrowded desk with many items in disarray. As a result of the overcrowding and disarray, long-term memory becomes less reliable, more time is needed to enter new information into long-term storage, and more time is required to retrieve the information. Thus, Park concludes that much of the blame for declining memory in late middle age is a result of information overload that builds up as we go through the adult years.

Question 13

Expertise

Answer 13

Because it takes so long to attain, expertise often shows up more in the middle adulthood than in the early adulthood years (Kim & Hasher, 2005). Recall from Chapter 9 that expertise involves having extensive, highly organized knowledge and understanding of a particular domain. Developing expertise and becoming an “expert” in a fi eld usually is the result of many years of experience, learning, and effort. Strategies that distinguish experts from novices include these:

• Experts are more likely to rely on their accumulated experience to solve problems.
• Experts often process information automatically and analyze it more effi ciently when solving a problem in their domain than novices do.
• Experts have better strategies and shortcuts to solving problems in their domain than novices do.
• Experts are more creative and fl exible in solving problems in their domain than novices are.

Question 14

Practical problem solving

Answer 14

Everyday problem solving is another important aspect of cognition (Margrett & Deshpande-Kamat, 2009). Nancy Denney (1986, 1990) observed circumstances such as how young and middle-aged adults handled a landlord who would not fi x their stove and what they did if a bank failed to deposit a check. She found that the ability to solve such practical problems improved through the forties and fi fties as individuals accumulated practical experience. However, since Denney’s research other studies on everyday problem-solving and decisionmaking effectiveness across the adult years have been conducted (Margrett & Deshpande-Kamat, 2009). A meta-analysis of studies indicated that everyday problem-solving and decision-making effectiveness remained stable in early and middle adulthood, then declined in late adulthood (Thornton & Dumke, 2005).

Question 15

Evolutionary theory of aging

Answer 15

In the evolutionary theory of aging, natural selection has not eliminated many harmful conditions and nonadaptive characteristics in older adults (Austad, 2009). Why? Because natural selection is linked to reproductive fi tness, which only is present in the earlier part of adulthood. For example, consider Alzheimer disease, an irreversible brain disorder, which does not appear until the late middle adulthood or late adulthood years. In evolutionary theory, if Alzheimer disease occurred earlier in development, it may have been eliminated many centuries ago.

Question 16

Cellular clock theory (Hayflick)

Answer 16

Cellular clock theory is Leonard Hayfl ick’s (1977) theory that cells can divide a maximum of about 75 to 80 times, and that as we age our cells become less capable of dividing. Hayfl ick found that cells extracted from adults in their fi fties to seventies divided fewer than 75 to 80 times. Based on the ways cells divide, Hayfl ick places the upper limit of the human life-span potential at about 120 to 125 years of age.

Question 17

Telomeres

Answer 17

In the last decade, scientists have tried to fi ll in a gap in cellular clock theory (Liew & Norbury, 2009; Sahin & DePinho, 2010; Zou & others, 2009). Hayfl ick did not know why cells die. The answer may lie at the tips of chromosomes, at telomeres, which are DNA sequences that cap chromosomes (Davoli, Denchi, & de Lange, 2010; Osterhage & Friedman, 2009). Each time a cell divides, the telomeres become shorter and shorter (see Figure 17.3). After about 70 or 80 replications, the telomeres are dramatically reduced, and the cell no longer can reproduce. A recent study revealed that healthy centenarians had longer telomeres than unhealthy centenarians

Question 18

Free-radical theory

Answer 18

A second microbiological theory of aging is free-radical theory, which states that people age because when cells metabolize energy, the by-products include unstable oxygen molecules known as free radicals (Chehab & others, 2008). The free radicals ricochet around the cells, damaging DNA and other cellular structures (Afanasev, 2009). The damage can lead to a range of disorders, including cancer and arthritis (Farooqui & Farooqui, 2009).

Question 19

Mitochondrial theory

Answer 19

There is increasing interest in the role that mitochondria — tiny bodies within cells that supply essential energy for function, growth, and repair—might play in aging (Scheckhuber, 2009) (see Figure 17.4). Mitochondrial theory states that aging is due to the decay of mitochondria. It appears that this decay is primarily from oxidative damage and loss of critical micronutrients supplied by the cell

Question 20

Hormonal stress theory

Answer 20

hormonal stress theory argues that aging in the body’s hormonal system can lower resistance to stress and increase the likelihood of disease (Finch & Seeman, 1999). Normally, when people experience stressors, the body responds by releasing certain hormones. As people age, the hormones stimulated by stress remain at elevated levels longer than when people were younger. These prolonged, elevated levels of stress-related hormones are associated with increased risks for many diseases, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and hypertension (Epel, 2009; Wolkowitz & others, 2010).

Recently, a variation of hormonal stress theory has emphasized the contribution of a decline in immune system functioning with aging (Effros, 2009b; Swain & Nikolich-Zugich, 2009; Walston & others, 2009). Aging contributes to immune system defi cits that give rise to infectious diseases in older adults (Bauer, Jeckel, & Luz, 2009). The extended duration of stress and diminished restorative processes in older adults may accelerate the effects of aging on immunity.

Question 21

The immune system

Answer 21

Decline in the functioning of the body’s immune system with aging is well documented (Agarwal & Busse, 2010). As we indicated earlier in our discussion of hormonal stress theory, the extended duration of stress and diminished restorative processes in older adults may accelerate the effects of aging on immunity (Zitrogel, Kepp, & Kroemer, 2010). Also, malnutrition involving low levels of protein is linked to a decrease in T cells that destroy infected cells and hence to deterioration in the immune system (Hughes & others, 2010). Exercise can improve immune system functioning.

Question 22

Visual acuity

Answer 22

In late adulthood, the decline in vision that began for most adults in early or middle adulthood becomes more pronounced (Dillon & others, 2010; Lindenberger & Ghisletta, 2009). Night driving is especially diffi cult, to some extent because tolerance for glare diminishes (Babizhayev, Minasyan, & Richer, 2009; Wood & others, 2010). Dark adaptation is slower—that is, older individuals take longer to recover their vision when going from a well-lighted room to semidarkness. The area of the visual fi eld becomes smaller, a change suggesting that the intensity of a stimulus in the peripheral area of the visual fi eld needs to be increased if the stimulus is to be seen. Events taking place away from the center of the visual fi eld might not be detected.

This visual decline often can be traced to a reduction in the quality or intensity of light reaching the retina. At 60 years of age, the retina receives only about onethird as much light as it did at 20 years of age (Scialfa & Kline, 2007). In extreme old age, these changes might be accompanied by degenerative changes in the retina, causing severe diffi culty in seeing.

Question 23

Color vision

Answer 23

Color vision also may decline with age in older adults as a result of the yellowing of the lens of the eye (Scialfa & Kline, 2007). This decline is most likely to occur in the green-blue-violet part of the color spectrum. As a result, older adults may have trouble accurately matching closely related colors such as navy socks and black socks.

Question 24

Depth perception

Answer 24

As with many areas of perception, depth perception changes little after infancy until adults become older. Depth perception typically declines in late adulthood, which can make it diffi cult for the older adult to determine how close or far away or how high or low something is (Bian & Anderson, 2008). A decline in depth perception can make steps or street curbs diffi cult to manage.

Question 25

Diseases of the eye

Answer 25

Cataracts (cloudy, opaque, distorted vision)

Glaucoma (buildup of fluid in the eye –> damage to the optic nerve). Can lead to blindness.

Macular degeneration: deterioration of the macula; the focal center of the visual field. Trouble viewing center field of vision. Can lead to blindness.

Question 26

Hearing

Answer 26

Hearing impairment usually does not become much of an impediment until late adulthood (Fozard & Gordon-Salant, 2001). Only 19 percent of individuals from 45 to 54 years of age experience some type of hearing problem, but for those 75 to 79, the f i gure reaches 75 percent (Harris, 1975). It has been estimated that 15 percent of the population over the age of 65 is legally deaf, usually due to degeneration of the cochlea, the primary neural receptor for hearing in the inner ear

Question 27

Smell and taste

Answer 27

Most older adults lose some of their sense of smell or taste, or both (Murphy, 2009). These losses often begin around 60 years of age (Hawkes, 2006). A majority of individuals 80-years-of-age and older experience a signifi cant reduction in smell (Lafreniere & Mann, 2009). Researchers have found that older adults show a greater decline in their sense of smell than in their taste (Schiffman, 2007). Smell and taste decline less in healthy older adults than in their less healthy counterparts. Reductions in the ability to smell and taste can reduce enjoyment of food and life satisfaction (Rolls & Drewnowski, 2007). Also, a decline in the sense of smell can reduce the ability to detect smoke from a fi re.

Question 28

Touch and pain

Answer 28

Changes in touch and pain are also associated with aging (Gagliese, 2009; Schmader & others, 2010). One study found that with aging individuals could detect touch less in the lower extremities (ankles, knees, and so on) than in the upper extremities (wrists, shoulders, and so on) (Corso, 1977). For most older adults, a decline in touch sensitivity is not problematic. Although decreased sensitivity to pain can help older adults cope with disease and injury, it can also mask injury and illness that need to be treated.

Question 29

Cognitive resources: working memory

Answer 29

Researchers have found declines in working memory during the late adulthood years (Delaloye & others, 2009). Explanation of the decline in working memory in older adults focuses on their less effi cient inhibition in preventing irrelevant information from entering working memory and their increased distractability

Question 30

Perceptual speed

Answer 30

Perceptual speed is the ability to perform simple perceptual-motor tasks such as deciding whether pairs of two-digit or two-letter strings are the same or different or determining the time required to step on the brakes when the car directly ahead stops. Perceptual speed shows considerable decline in late adulthood, and it is strongly linked with decline in working memory.

Question 31

Explicit and implicit memory

Answer 31

Researchers also have found that aging is linked with a decline in explicit memory (Yoon, Cole, & Lee, 2009). Explicit memory is memory of facts and experiences that individuals consciously know and can state. Explicit memory also is sometimes called declarative memory. Examples of explicit memory include being at a grocery store and remembering what you wanted to buy, being able to name the capital of Illinois, or recounting the events of a movie you have seen. Implicit memory is memory without conscious recollection; it involves skills and routine procedures that are automatically performed. Examples of implicit memory include driving a car, swinging a golf club, or typing on a computer keyboard, without having to consciously think about it. Implicit memory is less likely to be adversely affected by aging than explicit memory (Howard & others, 2008). Thus, older adults are more likely to forget what items they wanted to buy at a grocery store (unless they write them down on a list and take it with them) than they are to forget how to drive a car. Their perceptual speed might be slower in driving the car, but they remember how to do it.

Question 32

Source memory

Answer 32

Source memory is the ability to remember where one learned something. Failures of source memory increase with age in the adult years and they can create awkward situations, as when an older adult forgets who told a joke and retells it to the source.

Question 33

Prospective memory

Answer 33

Prospective memory involves remembering to do something in the future, such as remembering to take your medicine or remembering to do an errand. Although some researchers have found a decline in prospective memory with age, a number of studies show that whether there is a decline is complex and depends on such factors as the nature of the task, what is being assessed, and the context of the assessment.

Question 34

Noncognitive factors

Answer 34

Health, education, and socioeconomic status (SES) can infl uence an older adult’s performance on memory tasks (Fritsch & others, 2007; Lachman & others, 2010; Noble & others, 2010). Although such noncognitive factors as good health are associated with less memory decline in older adults, they do not eliminate memory decline.

Question 35

Conclusions about memory and aging

Answer 35

Some, but not all, aspects of memory decline in older adults (Healey & Hasher, 2009). The decline occurs primarily in episodic and working memory, not in semantic memory or implicit memory. A decline in perceptual speed is associated with memory decline (Salthouse, 2009). Successful aging does not mean eliminating memory decline, but does mean reducing it and adapting to it. As we will see later in this chapter, older adults can use certain strategies to reduce memory decline.

Question 36

Use it or lose it

Answer 36

Changes in cognitive activity patterns might result in disuse and consequent atrophy of cognitive skills (Hughes, 2010). This concept is captured in the concept of “use it or lose it.”

Question 37

Cognitive neuroscience of aging

Answer 37

Neural circuits in specifi c regions of the brain’s prefrontal cortex decline and this decline is linked to poorer performance by older adults on complex reasoning tasks, working memory, and episodic memory tasks (Grady & others, 2006).

• Recall from Chapter 17 that older adults are more likely than younger adults to use both hemispheres of the brain to compensate for aging declines in attention, memory, and language (Dennis & Cabeza, 2008).
• Functioning of the hippocampus declines but less so than the functioning of the frontal lobes in older adults.

Patterns of neural decline with aging are larger for retrieval than encoding (Gutchess & others, 2005).

• Compared with younger adults, older adults show greater activity in the frontal and parietal regions while they are engaging in tasks that require cognitive control processes such as attention (Park & Gutchess, 2005).
• Younger adults have better connectivity between brain regions than older adults. For example, a recent study revealed that younger adults had more connections between brain activations in frontal, occipital, and hippocampal regions than older adults during a diffi cult encoding task (Leshikar & others, 2010).
• An increasing number of cognitive and fi tness training studies include brain imaging techniques such as fMRI to assess the results of such training on brain functioning (Erickson & others, 2009). In one study, older adults who walked one hour a day three days a week for six months showed increased volume in the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain (Colcombe & others, 2006).

Question 38

Emerging adulthood

Answer 38

For most individuals, becoming an adult involves a lengthy transition period. Recently, the transition from adolescence to adulthood has been referred to as emerging adulthood, which occurs from approximately 18 to 25 years of age (Arnett, 2006, 2007). Experimentation and exploration characterize the emerging adult. At this point in their development, many individuals are still exploring which career path they want to follow, what they want their identity to be, and which lifestyle they want to adopt (for example, single, cohabiting, or married).

Question 39

Five key features of emerging adulthood

Answer 39

• Identity exploration, especially in love and work. Emerging adulthood is the time during which key changes in identity take place for many individuals (Cote, 2009; Kroger, Martinussen, & Marcia, 2010).
• Instability. Residential changes peak during early adulthood, a time during which there also is often instability in love, work, and education.
• Self-focused. According to Arnett (2006, p. 10), emerging adults “are selffocused in the sense that they have little in the way of social obligations, little in the way of duties and commitments to others, which leaves them with a great deal of autonomy in running their own lives.”
• Feeling in-between. Many emerging adults don’t consider themselves adolescents or full-fl edged adults.
• The age of possibilities, a time when individuals have an opportunity to transform their lives. Arnett (2006) describes two ways in which emerging adulthood is the age of possibilities: (1) many emerging adults are optimistic about their future; and (2) for emerging adults who have experienced diffi cult times while growing up, emerging adulthood presents an opportunity to direct their lives in a more positive direction .

Question 40

Physical performance and development

Answer 40

Most of us reach our peak physical performance before the age of 30, often between the ages of 19 and 26. This peak of physical performance occurs not only for the average young adult, but for outstanding athletes as well. Different types of athletes, however, reach their peak performances at dif-ferent ages.

Not only do we reach our peak in physical performance during early adulthood, but it is also during this age period that we begin to decline in physical performance. Muscle tone and strength usually begin to show signs of decline around the age of 30. Sagging chins and protruding abdo-mens also may begin to appear for the fi rst time. The lessening of phys-ical abilities is a common complaint among the just-turned thirties.

Question 41

Changing midlife

Answer 41

Many of today’s 50-year-olds are in better shape, more alert, and more productive than their 40-year-old counterparts from a generation or two earlier. As more people lead healthier lifestyles and medical discoveries help to stave off the aging process, the boundaries of middle age are being pushed upward. It looks like middle age is starting later and lasting longer for increasing numbers of active, healthy, and productive people. A current saying is “60 is the new 40,” implying that many 60-year-olds today are living a life that is as active, productive, and healthy as earlier generations did in their forties.

Question 42

Middle adulthood

Answer 42

Though the age boundaries are not set in stone, we will consider middle adulthood as the developmental period that begins at approximately 40 to 45 years of age and extends to about 60 to 65 years of age.

For many people, middle adulthood is a time of declining physical skills and expanding responsibility; a period in which people become more conscious of the young-old polarity and the shrinking amount of time left in life; a point when individuals seek to transmit something meaningful to the next generation; and a time when people reach and maintain satisfaction in their careers. In sum, middle adulthood involves “balancing work and relationship responsibilities in the midst of the physical and psychological changes associated with aging”.

Question 43

Physical changes: visible signs

Answer 43

One of the most visible signs of physical changes in middle adulthood is physical appearance. The fi rst outwardly noticeable signs of aging usually are apparent by the forties or fi fties. The skin begins to wrinkle and sag because of a loss of fat and collagen in underlying tissues (Farage & others, 2009). Small, localized areas of pigmentation in the skin produce aging spots, especially in areas that are exposed to sunlight, such as the hands and face. Hair becomes thinner and grayer due to a lower replacement rate and a decline in melanin production. Fingernails and toenails develop ridges and become thicker and more brittle.

Question 44

Height and weight

Answer 44

Individuals lose height in middle age, and many gain weight.

Question 45

Strength, joints, and bones

Answer 45

As we saw in Chapter 13, maximum physical strength often is attained in the twenties. The term sarcopenia is given to age-related loss of muscle mass and strength (Doran & others, 2009; Narici & Maffulli, 2010). The rate of muscle loss with age occurs at a rate of approximately 1 to 2 percent per year past the age of 50 (Marcell, 2003). A loss of strength especially occurs in the back and legs. Exercise can reduce the decline involved in sarcopenia (Park & others, 2010).

Peak functioning of the body’s joints also usually occurs in the twenties. The cushions for the movement of bones (such as tendons and ligaments) become less effi cient in the middle-adult years, a time when many individuals experience joint stiffness and more diffi culty in movement.

Question 46

Vision and hearing

Answer 46

Accommodation of the eye—the ability to focus and maintain an image on the retina—experiences its sharpest decline between 40 and 59 years of age. In particular, middle-aged individuals begin to have diffi culty viewing close objects.

Hearing also can start to decline by the age of 40. Auditory assessments indicate that hearing loss occurs in as many as 50 percent of individuals 50 years and older (Fowler & Leigh-Paffenroth, 2007). Sensitivity to high pitches usually declines fi rst. The ability to hear low-pitched sounds does not seem to decline much in middle adulthood, though.

Question 47

Lungs

Answer 47

There is little change in lung capacity through most of middle adulthood. However, at about the age of 55, the proteins in lung tissue become less elastic. This change, combined with a gradual stiffening of the chest wall, decreases the lungs’ capacity to shuttle oxygen from the air people breathe to the blood in their veins.

Question 48

Sleep

Answer 48

Some aspects of sleep become more problematic in middle age (McCrae & Dubyak, 2009). The total number of hours slept usually remains the same as in early adulthood, but beginning in the forties, wakeful periods are more frequent and there is less of the deepest type of sleep (stage 4). The amount of time spent lying awake in bed at night begins to increase in middle age, and this can produce a feeling of being less rested in the morning.

Question 49

Cognitive mechanics and cognitive pragmatics

Answer 49

Cognitive mechanics are the “hardware” of the mind and refl ect the neurophysiological architecture of the brain developed through evolution. Cognitive mechanics consist of these components: speed and accuracy of the processes involved in sensory input, attention, visual and motor memory, discrimination, comparison, and categorization. Because of the strong infl uence of biology, heredity, and health on cognitive mechanics, their decline with aging is likely. Some researchers conclude that the decline in cognitive mechanics may begin as soon as early midlife.

Cognitive pragmatics are the culture-based “software programs” of the mind. Cognitive pragmatics include reading and writing skills, language comprehension, educational qualifi cations, professional skills, and also the type of knowledge about the self and life skills that help us to master or cope with life. Because of the strong infl uence of culture on cognitive pragmatics, their improvement into old age is possible. Thus, although cognitive mechanics may decline in old age, cognitive pragmatics may actually improve, at least until individuals become very old.

The distinction between cognitive mechanics and cognitive pragmatics is similar to the one between fl uid (mechanics) and crystallized (pragmatics) intelligence that was described in Chapter 15. Indeed, the similarity is so strong that some experts now use these terms to describe cognitive aging patterns: fl uid mechanics and crystallized pragmatics (Lovden & Lindenberg, 2007).

Question 50

Speed of processing

Answer 50

It is now well accepted that the speed of processing information declines in late adulthood (Salthouse, 2009). Figure 18.2 illustrates this decline through the results of a study or slowing reaction times in adults. Although speed of processing information slows down in late adulthood, there is considerable individual variation in this ability. Accumulated knowledge may compensate to some degree for slower processing speed in older adults. The decline in processing speed in older adults is likely due to a decline in functioning of the brain and central nervous system.

Question 51

Selective attention

Answer 51

Selective attention is focusing on a specifi c aspect of experience that is relevant while ignoring others that are irrelevant. An example of selective attention is the ability to focus on one voice among many in a crowded room or a noisy restaurant.

Generally, older adults are less adept at selective attention than younger adults are (Bucur & Madden, 2007). However, on simple tasks involving a search for a feature, such as determining whether a target item is present on a computer screen, age differences are minimal when individuals are given suffi cient practice.

Question 52

Divided attention

Answer 52

Divided attention involves concentrating on more than one activity at the same time. When the two competing tasks are reasonably easy, age differences among adults are minimal or nonexistent. However, the more diffi cult the competing tasks are, the less effectively older adults divide attention than younger adults .

Question 53

Sustained attention

Answer 53

Sustained attention is focused and extended engagement with an object, task, event, or some other aspect of the environment. Sometimes sustained attention is referred to as vigilance. On tests of simple vigilance older adults usually perform as well as younger adults, but on complex vigilance tasks older adults’ performance usually drops.

Question 54

Episodic memory

Answer 54

Episodic memory is the retention of information about the where and when of life’s happenings. For example, what was it like when your younger sister or brother was born, what happened to you on your fi rst date, what were you doing when you heard that airplanes had struck the World Trade Center, and what did you eat for breakfast this morning?

Younger adults have better episodic memory than older adults have (Cansino, 2009). A recent study of 18- to 94-year-olds revealed that increased age was linked to increased diffi culty in retrieving episodic information, facts, and events.

Question 55

Semantic memory

Answer 55

Semantic memory is a person’s knowledge about the world. It includes a person’s fi elds of expertise, such as knowledge of chess for a skilled chess player; general academic knowledge of the sort learned in school, such as knowledge of geometry; and “everyday knowledge” about the meanings of words, famous individuals, important places, and common things, such as what day is Valentine’s Day. Semantic memory appears to be independent of an individual’s personal identity with the past. For example, you can access a fact—such as “Lima is the capital of Peru”—and not have the foggiest idea of when and where you learned it.

Does semantic memory decline during aging? Among the tasks that researchers often use to assess semantic memory are vocabulary, general knowledge, and word identifi cation (Bucur & Madden, 2007). Older adults do often take longer to retrieve semantic information, but usually they can ultimately retrieve it. However, the ability to retrieve very specifi c information (such as names) usually declines in older adults (Luo & Craik, 2008). For the most part, episodic memory declines more than semantic memory in older adults .

Question 56

Tip of the tongue phenomenon

Answer 56

Although many aspects of semantic memory are reasonably well preserved in late adulthood, a common memory problem for older adults is the tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) phenomenon , in which individuals can’t quite retrieve familiar information but have the feeling that they should be able to retrieve it. Researchers have found that older adults are more likely to be experience TOT states than younger adults.