Ageing Flashcards
How much of the neurons in the hippocampus are lost by age 80?
20-30%.
Do fluid and crystallised cognitive abilities decline, increase or stay the same with age?
Fluid skills tend to decline.
Crystallised abilities continue to increase, or at least remain relatively stable.
What is a fluid vs. a crystallised ability?
Fluid = ability to process new information.
Crystallised = stored knowledge.
When working memory is relied upon, is cognitive decline greater or smaller?
Greater.
Time and event based prospective memory _____ with age.
Declines.
Episodic memory exhibits a reliable _____ with age, while semantic memory ____________.
- Decline.
- Is relatively stable.
Which is more age-sensitive, fully remembering or knowing?
Fulling remembering.
What is the associative deficit hypothesis?
The inability to remember the details results from a failure to retrieve links between individual items and the contexts in which they appeared during encoding.
What does Alzheimers diagnosis require? (2)
- Memory impairment.
- Two other cognitive deficits.
What areas of the brain does Alzheimers initially affect? (2)
- Medial temporal lobes.
- Hippocampus.
Does being physically active help cognition?
Yes!
True of false, higher intellectual function have cognitive reserve (a buffer against cognitive deficits in older age).
True!
Describe Park et al.’s (2014) experiment on memory.
- Park et al. assessed active learning against a passive placebo.
- Active learning involved photography and quilting.
- Episodic memory improved relative to the placebo after only three months.
List three effects of perceived incompetence of older adults.
- Pity can result in excessive helping behaviours.
- In work, older adults are more likely to receive lower ratings in performance.
- General social exclusion.
Describe Levy’s (1996) experiment on self-stereotyping.
Levy found that only older adults that were exposed to subliminal negative stereotypes exhibited reduced memory performance.
