8 - Cognitive Ageing Flashcards
what are crystallised abilities?
semantic memory - type of long-term memory responsible for storing general knowledge, facts, and meanings
why do older adults have better semantic memory?
- they have more time to experience education, more reading, experiencing events
- quality and type of educational differences between older and younger adults
evidence that older adults have better semantic memory
OAs substantially outperform YAs on vocabulary tests, especially multiple choice
OAs substantially outperform YAs on general knowledge tests
semantic priming is intact and slightly improves in older age
how does the brain control semantic memory?
a diffuse network of brain regions underlie semantic memory
less dependence on areas that decline in older age (e.g. hippocampus)
what is fluid intelligence?
abstract reasoning in novel situations
what is the dual process theory in context of episodic memory?
recollection (“remember”) - retrieving the specific contextual, associative, perceptual etc. details an event
familiarity (“know”) - memory in the absence of retrieving specific details, e.g., “It just feels familiar”
how does episodic memory change with age?
accurate recollection declines in older age, but accurate familiarity is intact
false recollection and familiarity both increase in older age
why does recollection decline in older age but not familiarity?
hippocampus and caudate nucleus, associated with recall, decline in structural integrity with age
whereas the entorhinal cortex, associated with recognition, remains stable
what is the associative deficit hypothesis
more deficient with age - memory for associations
less deficient with age - memory for individual items
what is the source monitoring framework?
more deficient with age - memory for source and context
less deficient with age - memory for specific content/items
how do fluid abilities (episodic memory) change with age?
EM declines across the lifespan, deficit greatest for arbitrary associative/bound information that requires explicit recollection
how does processing speed relate to ageing?
OAs have lower processing speed, this constrains cognition
- there is limited time to execute cognitive operations
- reduction in the amount of simultaneously available information
an alternative theory about how processing speed relates to ageing
speed is a consequence of the age difference in WM capacity
speed-accuracy trade-off: OAs prefer accuracy to speed compared to YAs
how does working memory change with age?
OAs lower WM capacity than YAs
how is WM a bottleneck for cognition?
- Cognitive abilities are constrained by efficiency to keep information active in WM
- The capacity of working memory contrains other higher-order cognitive abilities, e.g. fluid intelligence and long-term episodic memory
