applied themes in ageing Flashcards
mental exercise
e.g. use of brain training apps to increase IQ or get better outcomes
intuitive reasoning behind mental exercise
idea that brain can be trained to become more mentally fit
theoretical reasoning behind mental exercise
WM capacity constrains a wide range of cognitive functions including fluid intelligence (Gf)
expanding WM capacity should benefit the cognitive functions that it constrains
correlational/description mental exercise studies types (2)
cross-sectional → reported mental exercise-cognition relations at a single time point
longitudinal → baseline reported mental exercise and cognition gains at later time points
interventions on mental exercise studies type - what can this show
longitudinal → immediate and long-term effects of mental exercise on cognition vs control
only way to establish a clear causal role of mental exercise on cognition is using intervention methods
effects immediately after intervention aren’t necessarily informative about age-related changes in mental ability that occur over years/decades
Singh-Manoux et al (2003) - study of cognition and leisure activities
objectives of study
measures of cognitive ability (5)
results
discussion
summary
high cognitive leisure activities = high cognitive ability (vice versa same for low)
this is independent of age, education and SES
therefore relationship between mental exercise and cog ability - don’t know direction
study
- survey of over 10,000 people about variety of issue with health and SES and leisure activities
- sorted leisure activities by level of cognitive effort and by whether they were individual or social
- researched whether activities that were high cognitive effort related to their cognitive abilities
tasks to measure cognitive abilities:
- verbal memory - 20 word free recall test
- AH4-I → series of 65 items (verbal + maths) - inductive reasoning to identify patterns and infer principles and rules
- Mill Hill → vocab test
- Semantic fluency → e.g. come up with as many animal words as possible in 1 min
- Phonemic fluency → e.g. come up with as many “s” words as possible in 1 min
results:
- stronger positive correlations between high cognitive leisure activities and cognitive ability
- lower correlations between cognitive ability and low cognitive effort leisure activities
- positive association between high cognitive effort leisure activities and ability independent of age, education, and SES
discussion:
this gives evidence for relationship between mental exercise and cognitive ability → but don’t know direction of causation e.g. cognitive better people do more taxing activities because they are able to
or could be due to another factor e.g. SES
differential preservation hypothesis
mental activity protects against age-related decline in mental ability
supports idea of causative role of mental exercise to minimise cognitive decline in older age
preserved differentiation hypothesis
main effects across age - nothing special about cumulative activity that differentially boosts performance later in life
previous mental ability effects later - therefore no point starting mental exercise with older
lack of interactions between age and mental exercise
methodological issues in mental training literature (3)
active vs passive control groups:
- control group shouldn’t just do nothing - make sure placebo is realistic enough → need to make sure meaningful mental exercise is what is measured
publication bias:
- publish more research with a positive or significant outcome rather than those that didn’t
adaptive procedures - adjusting for task difficulty:
- if you do multiple of same training sessions that don’t get harder you’re likely to get better at it → therefore it needs to adapt with difficulty
- make sure people are always performing at their maximum not just passing a level and staying there - never can train above this point if it doesn’t get harder
theoretical issues in mental training literature
what is being trained exactly
e.g. not just WM in general - which component specifically is being trained and can this improve with age
practical issues with mental training literature (3)
maintenance of training gains over long-term:
- does mental exercise have to continue being done to maintain this
initial cognitive ability as moderator of intervention:
- do the “rich get richer”
near and far transfer effects:
- complete a WM task
- near transfer → complete a similar WM task
- medium transfer → complete a task that requires similar concepts to WM
- far transfer → reasoning task (requires fluid intelligence not WM)
- e.g. doing a sudoku and the ability to find your keys = far transfer → not very similar cognitive abilities in these, therefore practicing sudoku wouldn’t improve the key finding abilities
training and improving core cognitive constructs → does this actually improve far transfer abilities or not?
but will people be better at more similar tasks when they’ve trained one WM task
use of transfer tasks with WM
to measure whether cognitive abilities are improved or just ability to complete a specific task
if abilities are improved then performance on other tasks should improve too
Kerbach and Verhaeghen (2014) - near and far transfer study with training
measures (4)
results
limitations
meta-analysis of training tasks
measures:
- gains in target task by training groups
- gains in target task by active and passive control groups
- near transfer gains
- far transfer gains
measured in effect size
results:
- training gains in both trained task as well as evidence of near and far transfer was found
- no age difference in effectiveness of training programs - benefits in younger and older adults
limitations
training effects may be exaggerated in the above study:
- far transfer = reasoning and task-switching merged
- no correction for baseline differences in groups
unclear which studies were used in this analysis - 17 total:
- 2 without control group
- 1 based on same sample used in other study
- 2 studies omitted
- 1 outlier found
found huge benefits of training but sample was very small
updated meta-analysis of Kerbach and Verhaeghen (2014) near and far transfer with training study
found very little gains at all and modest far transfer results - very few studies properly done
plotted against change in training conditions compared to control conditions
shows performance gains of mental exercise over controls in older adulthood
due to lack of control groups and small samples
effects of mental exercise have been exaggerated
recent meta-analysis of training tasks (2 studies)
effectiveness of mental exercise (e.g. training WM) in terms of far transfer is controversial → only clear benefits for trained tasks
Sala et al (2019)
large effect of intervention for trained tasks
smaller effects for near and far transfer tasks → null when using studies only with active controls
Hou et al (nd)
significant long term effects of intervention on updating, shifting, inhibition, and maintenance
weaker or null effects for far transfer tasks
lifestyle and cognitive abilities
importance of high-cognitive leisure activities in relation to cognitive abilities
maybe actually about encouraging an engaging and active lifestyle instead of training cognitive tasks
WHO healthy ageing definition
sustaining functional ability in everyday life – being mobile, building/maintaining relationships, and lifelong learning
Rowe and Kahn (1987) - characteristics of successful ageing
high cog and physical function
low probability of disease and disability
active engagement in life
adult leisure activities with ageing (3)
related to 3 indicators of successful ageing (correlational studies):
* cognitive function
* physical function
* mental health
sports activities related to self-reported everyday failures
gaming activities related to test-based everyday performance
training lifestyles to improve cognitive abilities studies
aim
intervention phase (2 engagement types)
test phase (5 tests)
prediction
results
Park et al (2013)
tried to train lifestyles to enhance active and engaged lifestyles in older adults (age 60-90)
intervention phase:
* productive engagement: photo, quilt, dual
* receptive engagement: social (low cognitive demand), placebo (low social and cognitive demand); no contact control
beware social effects could confound - placebo group could correct for this
first five conditions required 15 hr/week structured activities for 3 months
test phase:
* cognitive battery (far transfer)
* processing speed (digit comparison)
* mental control (Flanker tasks)
* episodic memory (immediate and delayed recall and recognition memory)
* visuospatial processing (CANTAB spatial memory task, Stockings of Cambridge Task, modified Raven’s)
prediction
improved cognition in productive engagement conditions vs. receptive engagement conditions
especially such that photo shows better verbal memory and quilt shows better visuospatial abilities
results:
corrected for multiple comparisons
episodic memory showed best benefits from photography lifestyle group - but less going on
why would EM be selectively benefitted → theory isn’t clear here
associative binding effect
The ability to connect the people, places, and objects comprising an event into a coherent memory
requirement for an episodic memory to include information not only about individual elements of an experience but also about the way in which those elements are linked together
associative binding deficit in older adults
inability to remember the details of prior episodes results from a failure to create and retrieve links between individual items and the contexts in which they appeared during encoding.
Salthouse (2011) - CEOs and ageing
fortune 500 CEOs are over-represented in middle/old age
therefore age-related declines can occur in important cognitive abilities without major consequences for functioning in society
age and job correlations
age is negatively correlated with cognitive constructs in lab setting
age shows no relationship with other job-related variables that require these cognitive constructs
areas where older adults excel (4 - list)
semantic memory
concern for others
wisdom
expertise
older adults excel: concern for others
- negative behavioural tendencies decline through adulthood
- prosocial traits increase in adulthood
- charitable giving and volunteering increases up to age 70
- differences observed even when controlling for wealth - poor people give proportionally more than rich people
- practical reasons - time and financial resources - and change in approach to cost-benefit ratio of prosocial behaviour
older adults excel: wisdom
reflecting on life could make you realise you didn’t do what you had planned to
wisdom isn’t technical or intellectual knowledge - combines cognition, emotion, motivation
however, study hasn’t found correlation between wisdom and age
* maybe from cohort effects
* maybe as study was cross sectional
* task relevance may have been an issue - lacks real life experience
older adults excel: wisdom - - Berlin wisdom paradigm
Baltes and Smith (1990)
5 criteria to describe expert knowledge:
factual knowledge → about human nature and life
procedural knowledge → ways of dealing with fundamental questions about meaning and conduct of life
life-span contextualism → deep understanding about contexts of life problems, how these contexts are related and how they change over time
value relativism and tolerance → acknowledge individual and cultural differences in values of life priorities
awareness and management of uncertainty → understand life decision, evaluations, and plans are never free of uncertainty - do all that you can to avoid resignation
older adults excel: wisdom
Thomas and Kunzmann (2013) - advice to video clips
video clips depicting life problems concerning marital conflict and suicide
pilot study confirmed marital conflict was more relevant to younger adults → they performed better (showed better wisdom) on this and gave better advice compared to older adults
similar wisdom on suicide group as neither older or younger had more specific experience with it
not just general wisdom - comes from life experiences
older adults excel: expertise
lots of years of practice
enhanced semantic memory in older age
enhanced wisdom in own domain - had opportunity to develop specific skills and expertise
Perhaps prior knowledge can facilitate the associative binding necessary for a task, especially for seemingly arbitrarily paired information
older adults excel: expertise
chess study
Strittmatter et al (2020)
study of 125 years and over 24000 chess games
compared individual moves in each game against the “optimal” move suggested by a computer
performance increases until early 20s and plateaus up to 35 years and then declines
also overall increase in performance with more years of chess being played → improvements with new generations
older adults excel: expertise
number-object-location study
YA vs OA vs retired accountants studied info in format:
2 digit - object - location
e.g. 97 hotels in sheffield
e.g. 68 nails in a bowl
different relatedness between info
cued recall test - locations presented one at a time, had to recall the number and object
results:
significant 3-way interaction:
OA recalled less than YA when info was numerical
limited differences when info was related
retired accountants had excellent numerical memory vs OAs and same as YAs – protects against age related differences
object recall was still better for YAs - some divergent validity that expertise is specific to particular domain
how to improve expertise
number-object-location study
add a group of YA accountants so there’s 4 groups:
YA
YA accountants
OA
OA accountants
older adults excel: expertise
Taylor et al (2005) - air traffic
found expertise doesn’t protect against age-related decline in avian communication
study with 3 levels of expertise
participants completed 5 flight simulations with recorded messages speaking at different speeds
age, expertise, and WM impacted performance with differing task speed/difficulty
age = decrease ability
expertise = increase ability
WM = biggest increase in ability
no interaction between these variables
- 75% age differences due to WM
- controlling for WM and expertise, only 4% due to age
Salthouse 2011 - job performance and age correlations
rarely need to act at optimum - therefore declines not often noticed
shift to reliance on accumulated knowledge with age
- from fluid to crystalised ability
cognition only accounts for 25% variance in job performance
individual can make accommodations to conceal deficits e.g. don’t drive in rush hour when you become worse at driving
