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Geropsychology > Chapter 2 > Flashcards

Chapter 2 Flashcards

1
Q

Introduction

A
  • Raw score: number of questions answered correctly on an intelligence test
  • Classic ageing curve: mean score in a graph rises through childhood and adolescence, reaches a plateau in late teens, declines at some point in adulthood
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2
Q

• Longitudinal study

A

: measure individual when they are young and then again when they are old

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3
Q

• Cross-sectional study

A

measure a young and an old individual at the same point in time with same measurement

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4
Q

• Cohort effect

A

: a difference due to generational differences in background and upbringing rather than ageing per se in cross-sectional studies

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5
Q

• Confounding variables

A

matching the groups on the cohort measures you feel could distort the findings

  • When confounding variables in cross-sectional age studies are controlled, the age difference is typically diminished but not removed
  • Impossible to remove all cohort effects
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6
Q

• Overlapping longitudinal study:

A

: testing several age cohorts on one occasion, then testing them on regular intervals thereafter younger ages will become the ages the older cohorts were earlier in the studycross-sectional and longitudinal used for control for cohort effects

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7
Q

• Seattle Longitudinal Ageing Study (Schaie et al.)

A

in 1956, group of people between 20 and 70 tested and then retested at 7-year intervals, periodically new participants added part of difference between age groups due to cohort effect people aged 60 in 1970 had lower scores than people aged 60 in 200 intellectual skills were not as favored in 1970

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8
Q

Problems with Longitudinal studies

A
  • Drop-out effect: many participants who feel like their intellectual performance gets worse drop out because they regard the testing as a competition, leaving a rest with higher intellectual performance
  • size of drop out effect among elder participants can be very large 26-92%
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9
Q

• Berlin Aging study

A

if only participants who attended several sessions of longitudinal study are considered, then their performance on cross-sectional and longitudinal comparison was similar if all participants were considered (including drop outs): cross-sectional comparisons significantly bigger age changes longitudinal studies might underestimate ageing decline

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10
Q

• Practice effect

A

participants who remain in longitudinal study improve performance on tests might become test wise: at ease with test procedures, increased general awareness etc…

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11
Q

• Key longitudinal studies:

A

Seattle, Berlin, Duke Longitudinal Study

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12
Q

Decline

A
  • By age of 75 mean score in measure of intelligence (e.g. Wechsler Adult intelligence scale) is 1 standard deviation lower than young adult mean
  • Decline starts in late 20ies
  • Old age not special time for intellectual decline
  • Decline does not follow same patterns in all individuals
  • Decline only in some measures of intellectual skills
  • Research based on raw scores of intelligence, not IQ
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13
Q

• Intelligence quotient:

A

: converting the raw score into a measure of how intelligent a person is relative to the rest of their age group
• Percentile format: percentage with higher or lower scores
• IQ scale : 100: average, 15= SD
• Individual remains roughly same IQ throughout life Scottish study, Deary et al.
• IQ always relative to own age group can therefore differ from younger age groups
• Correlations between IQ test in young and old age r=0,7 still some variability
• No method of measuring intelligence perfect: longitudinal= drop-out and practice effects, cross-sectional=cohort effects

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14
Q

Fluid and crystallized intelligence

A

• in later life: fluid intelligence declines, crystallized intelligence increases or remains stable  supported by Horn and Cattell (1967

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15
Q

• Dewey’s paradox of ageing

A

maturity good, age bad

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16
Q

• General intelligence (g):

A

global measure of intellectual ability, actually set of sub-skills

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17
Q

• Fluid intelligence:

A

ability to solve novel problems

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18
Q

• Crystallized intelligence:

A

pre-existing knowledge

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19
Q

• test batterie:

A

set of tests that test the same thing

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20
Q

• Raven’s progressive matrices:

A

common test of fluid intelligence
• Results in fluid intelligence tests vary more than results in crystallized intelligence tests
• Adults under 60 decline by between -0,02 and -0,03 SD every year in fluid intelligence
• More than SDs = extraordinary

21
Q

• Salthouse:

A

older people were an average of 1.75 SD below the mean of younger people but not very valid testing cohort effect, Primary Mental Abilities (PMA) Test = commonly used test battery, very different SDs

22
Q

• Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS):

A

digit symbol test requires writing, maybe disadvantage for older people (physical inability)= unfair testing

23
Q

• Mill Hill Vocabulary Test

A

: crystallized intelligence test no time limit elders would have been way worse with time limit

24
Q

Variability in intellectual change

A

• The more reliant a skill is on crystallized ability, the less it declines

25
Q

• Schaie: intellectual tasks divided into six sub-skills

A

inductive reasoning (ability to work out rules governing newly encountered data)

  • spatial reasoning
  • perceptual speed (speed to respond to basic stimuli, e.g. flash of light
  • numeric ability
  • verbal ability little or no age related decline
  • verbal memory (ability to remember words)
  • All abilities except verbal ability show decline with age
  • Mean does not represent individual
  • Rates of change within subtypes of intelligence vary significantly between individualsvariability bigger between groups of old people than between groups of young people
  • Harder to talk about a typical old person than to talk about a typical young person
  • Participants vary a lot between test sessions
26
Q

• Dedifferentiation/reintegration

A

: Differentationbelief that intellectual sub-skills become less related in childhood and early adult development, process gets reversed with old age, skills become more related again highly debated, not proven

27
Q

Wisdom

A
  • Wisdom= crystallized intelligence
  • Wit= fluid intelligence
  • Wisdom studied in its own right
  • Baltes et al.: participants are given a problem, must find a solution, solution is graded (e.g. social considerations, etc.)
  • Wisdom to some extend social skill rather than intellectual skill
  • Different approaches to assessing wisdom: psychometric parameters, psychoanalytic approaches, questionnaires and interviews
  • Baltes and Smith: wisdom= sagacity of judgements about real-life problems
  • Chandler and Holiday: wisdom= providing good advise, being competent and socially skilled
  • Empirical evidence: wisdom= strong correlation with intelligence, tempered by personality traits, but also partly independent
  • Wisdom related to life satisfaction in old and very old people and in preparation for death
  • Wisdom NOT preserve of old age, no indication that older people significantly wiser
  • Ardelt (2010): elders score higher on affective and reflective aspects of considering problems may show greater skill in some aspects of wisdom-related issues
28
Q

• Assembled cognition:

A

skills (e.g. wisdom) that build on “pure” measures of intelligence

29
Q

Health, intelligence and the terminal drop model

A
  • Why intellectual change in older people?
  • Theory: physical fitness and health are correlated with intelligence with elders
  • physical exercise can improve certain aspects of ageing intellectual performance , especially fluid intelligence (Capaldi)
  • Reasons: better cardiovascular system= better cognitive skills, prevents old-age diabetes (known to lower intellectual skills)
  • Greater confidence and motivation
  • Correlated with intellectual functioning: effective blood flow, BMI, B vitamin level, level of urinary peptides, levels of apolipoprotein E, genotype
  • Problems: maybe once damage is done, no improvement; lowered chemical x is symptom, not cause; lowered chemical x because of low intellectual skills not other way around; SES has also important role  health factor for intellectual change, but role not clearly defined
30
Q

• Terminal drop model

A

skills suddenly plummet month or years before death, mind “winds down” in preparation for death was found in several longitudinal studies

31
Q

• Critical loss:

A

: indices for imminent death
-decline in ability to detect verbal abilities greater than 10%
-Any decline in vocabulary size
-worsening abilities on paired associate learning and psychomotor skills
-declining verbal skills
-Decline in total scores on the WAIS
-Decline in most cognitive skills
-Decline in fluid intelligence greater than 10%
-Decline in vocabulary score and level of depression
-Decline in the digit-symbol task
-Decline in general decline in intelligence
-Level of life satisfaction
-decline in verbal and spatial abilities with spatial decline starting 15 years before death
 BUT studies very different (different statistical methods, groups, etc.)

32
Q

Disuse theory

A

: “use it or lose it”, belief that decline because skills are not used
• Hard to proof, ambiguous findings worse skill because of no practice or because of inability to practice because of physical decline, or worsened just by itself?
• Skills in architects or pilots still decline despite daily practice (Salthouse)
• Salthouse, Berish, Miles: effects of intellectual stimulation on level of cognitive skills
Theory 1: the older the person, the lower the level of intellectual stimulation  true
Theory 2: positive correlation between level of stimulation and level of functioning (intelligence)  not true
Theory 3: interaction of age and level of stimulation in predicting intellectual functioning  not true
• BUT: activity inventoryunsubtle instrument, person can be unaware of being intellectually stimulated
• Potter, Holms, Plassmann enforced practice CAN have long-term benefits in old age
• Schooler, Multau positive correlation between complexity of leisure activities and intelligence
• Laboratory tests, not real life. In RL: age difference often less
• Older people can compensate for loss of skills (Chess experiment, Charness)
• Loss of memory compensated with experience
• Typing speed: elders had slower finger movements and reaction times, but no difference in typing speed looked further ahead
• Age difference in basic visual search skills can be overcome by giving compensatory strategy
• Practice can revive supposedly lost skills (e.g. fluid intelligence) PROBLEM: unsufficient control groups, etc. skill could still be in decline, just new strategy
• Knowledge appears to protect against increased neural noise but not cell loss
• Other studies: still decline, slower learning rates, poorer memory, etc.
• Method of loci
• Compensation through practice has limits

33
Q

• SOC model

A

: selection, optimization and compensation  we develop in adulthood by selecting what to specialize in, then optimizing by practice, then in old age protecting against decay by compensating
• Different brain activities in older people, brain works harder

34
Q

• Cognitive reserve

A

“buffer” against loss by people with higher IQ and/or education can afford to lose more before decline in intellectual performance becomes noticeable  some evidence, but not clear

35
Q

• Scaffolding theory of ageing and cognition (STAC):

A

declining mental mechanisms are “propped up” by greater reliance on the working of the prefrontal cortex  is strengthened through rehearsal of skillscompensation model

36
Q

• HAROLD (hemispheric asymmetry reduction in older adults):

A

): left an dright side of brain are more equally involved

37
Q

Reaction times and the general slowing hypothesis

A
  • RT= time to respond to a stimulus
  • Simple reaction time (SRT)= only one stimulus, only one response
  • Choice reaction time (CRT)= different stimuli requiring different responses (press A when red light, press B when green light)
  • RT gets slower with age
  • Age difference gets bigger the more choices must be discriminated between
  • Nervous system of older people is less efficient
  • Extra choices= age x complexity effect
  • After lots of practicing, age difference remains constant
  • Huge proportion of age difference might be due to “settling in” to the task
  • Automatic responses unaffected by ageing (disputed, not proven)
  • Often only age differences in mean reaction times considered maybe misleading
  • Fastest reaction times of old and young still the same old make fewer very fast responses, make wider variety of responses, all slow down after error, older take longer to reach previous reaction time; younger can stick to reaction time, old oscillate
  • Increasing preparation time helps old
  • When and young matched for intelligence no difference in choice reaction time
  • Slowing reaction times are measuring the cause of declining intellectual skills (speed with which neurons send messages)
  • Also lowering of general accuracy and efficiency of system  particular mental processes cannot be completed Result of general physical decline slow reaction time may also measure state of nervous system
  • Variability of response increases in old ( don’t respond exactly the same in every trial) “unreliable performance”
  • The more unreliable participant, the lower cognitive test score
  • The more unreliable participant, the lower intelligence test score
  • RT may also reveal cognitive status
38
Q

• General slowing (speed) hypothesis

A

ageing decline in intellectual skills due to slowing in the speed of neural transmission  Problem: age x complexity effect
• Brinley Plot: both mean reaction times plotted against each other
•  difference is actually lineardifference in basic processing speed
• NOT disproportionate but linear, remains same size
• General slowing: difficulty of task does not better
• BUT: compensatory strategies could still influence RT
• Also, statistical issues
• Regression
• Brinley plot problems maybe oversimplified, could always produce straight line, etc… can not be universally applied
• Statistical problems with general slowing hypothesis (mehrere Stichpunkte, hier nicht aufgeführt, siehe Buch!! s.81/82)
• General slowing almost certainly plays role metaanalysis Shepard and Vernon: correlation between speed of processing measures and cognitive ability
• Size of role of general slowing in loss of intellectual ability not clear. Salthouse: r=.28 SRT and r=.CRT
• Changes in intellectual skills are mediated by the decline in processing speeds

39
Q

Brain volume and intellectual skills

A
  • Brain loses volume with age
  • Hippocampus, parahippocampal region and amygdala lose volume
  • Cortical region controlling non-dominant hand loses volume
  • Deary (Scottish Mental Survey): 14% of variance in cognitive skills in elders attributed to abnormalities in white matter (white matter=myelin, grey matter=cells)
  • White matter increases in volume during early adult life, declining in middle-aged and older adults echoes classic ageing curve of intellectual change
  • Decline in brain volume (anterior medial temporal lobe) in younger adults predicts onset of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) (decline in intelligence greater than expected for age, but less severe than dementia)
  • Strong evidence for link between brain volume and intellectual performance in later life
  • There COULD be confounding variable that re not known yet
  • Correlations accounting for 19% and 20-25% of variance (not that strong)
  • Brain measurement still not very clear
  • Rabbit: examined white matter lesion prevalence in relation to mental abilities using basic correlations gave radically different from more complex statistical techniques found that WMLP accounted for age-related variance on measure of speed of processing but not intelligence test performancespeed of processing and fluid intelligence might just be symptomatic for other complex set of processes
  • Lifestyle changes affect brain volume: physical exercise prevents grey matter from shrinking, too much body fat might shrink it
40
Q

The frontal lobe hypothesis

A
  • Frontal lobes are especially affected by changes in brain structure
  • Frontal lobes involved in complex thought processes, esp. planning and remembering the order in which events occurred
  • Inhibit responses that are not needed inhibitory functioning
  • A lot on evidence on decline of fl
  • Not all attributed to fl, many specific regions involved, decline in old people different than people with fl lesions
  • Much of frontal lobe deficit may be manifestation of general change in fluid intelligence-related skills
  • A lot of areas in brain contribute to age-related decline, but a lot is in tandem with other aging changes
  • Frontal lobe decline not sole cause but important cause for age-related decline
41
Q

Sensory changes and intelligence

A
  • Hearing, sight, touch, etc.
  • Sensory abilities positively correlated with intelligence test scores in older adults (list of studys, not mentioned here, siehe p.86)
  • Garbage in, garbage out?  No, Lindenberger: reducing sensory input for middle aged persons did not reduce cognitive performance
  • General slowing hypothesis
  • Problem: correlation between intelligence and sensory abilities so small that other factors might also play key role, e.g. chronological age
  • Studies with very different results
  • Sensory ability useful index of change only on general level, much variance unexplained
  • General ageing effect: effect is known to be linked to ageing, but precise nature is unknown
  • High IQ may lead to better self-preservation better senses
  • Good self-preservation skills disuse theory
  • Newson and Kemps: correlation between sensory acuity and cognitive skills but large amount of variance could be accounted for by lifestyle
42
Q

Intelligence with everything

A
  • Changes in intellectual skills in later life highly correlated with changes in general intelligence memory for word lists; identifying briefly presented visual images; pattern recognition; finding solution to anagrams; everyday problem solving and speed of planning a driving route
  • Most declines in intellectual skills= decline in intelligence
  • BUT: Correlations between intelligence and other intellectual skills is not perfect
  • Laboratory studies do not measure real world
  • Assessment of effect of general intelligence on performance:
  • Matching: comparing groups who are known to have the same level of ability at a certain skill so any difference between groups can not be due to that skill good way but hard to find matching groups
  • Partial correlation: statistical technique that assesses whether the relationship between two variables is due to the common influence of a third (correlation does not equal causation)
  • Partialled out: influence of third variable is mathematically removed
43
Q

Attentional deficits in ageing

A

• Attention= ability to concentrate on and/or remember items, despite distracting stimuli
• Frontal lobes involved in attentional processes
• Sustained attention: ability simply to concentrate on task at hand without being distracted
Quite well preserved in later life, but some loss (but could also be due to different measurement methods)
• Selective attention concentrate on task while other distractive stimuli are present
tested by visual search task , Stroop task
• Contradictory findings regarding decline of selective attention with age depends heavily on research methods
• Maylor and Lavie (1998): participants should identify target in group of letters , in periphery was distractor
older participants more affected by distracter when there was a small number of letters to choose from than when there was a large number
•  but other studies failed to find age effect
• There IS decline in selective attention with age  debate is over size, not existance
• All studies were tested in laboratory, not real life
• Divided attention: ability to attend simultaneously to and process more than one source of info
• Working memory tasks
• Well proven age-related decline in divided attention
• Useful field of view (UFOV): measure of how much “tunnel vision” people have in particular situations
• Measured by getting participant to fixate on symbol presented on middle of computer stimuli presented at various distances away from symbol
• Elder smaller UFOV correlated with likelihood of car accident
• In divided attention task, elders UFOV shrinks significantly more than young
• Dichotic listening task: presented with different message in every ear elders bad at this
• Other measure: maintaining balance while doing mental task older use more muscles to keep balance, pay more attention to keeping balance than mental task, young pay more attention to mental task than balance

44
Q

Conceptional organization

A
  • Conceptual organization: ability to treat items at abstract level, in order to uncover basic rules and principles elders have difficulties doing that
  • Constraint seeking strategy: “20 questions” Wer bin ich? -Spiel, yes or no questions  choice of possibilities is increasingly constraint by each question
  • Hypothesis scanning: specific item is named
  • Older people far less efficient at “20 questions” task decline in categorization skill
  • Sentential grouping: “rabbit and carrot” belong together because they can be used in same sentence, not grouped in animal and vegetable failure to think in abstract terms
  • Older people worse at interpreting meaning of proverbs (Duffy)
  • Performance on subsequent sessions got worse (those of young improved)
  • Denny: elders have no decline, but just group more naturally
  • More intelligent= use normal grouping longer
  • Categorization based around rule-based learning: less age difference
  • If people stick to tried and tested methods: little age difference
45
Q

Creativity in later life

A

• Creativity (in tandem with intelligence)act must be novel and appropriate to situation
• Divergent thinking: thinking diverges from mainstream thought)
• People peak at divergent thinking at around age 40 decline after that
• Difference May be lessor absent for ppl who have always been creative
• Problem: divergent thinking tasks my not be applicable to real life
• Biographical approach: looking at creative person’s life to see what they did differently
Artists and musicians: display talent early in life (Mozart)
scientists: in their twenties, competent but not outstanding students until they specializepeak of creative outburst before they are 40
• Quality ratio: creative person produces same ratio of good and indifferent work as in unproductive periods quality ratio stays constant
• Physical decline can affect creative people more e.g. opera singers or ballet dancers  but NOT true for majority of creative ppl
• Intelligence poor predictor of creativity
• Creative ppl may fall victim to own success (less creative output when in leading position)
Or circumstance (hard to live of art as artist)
• Being creative still increases well-being and self-esteem

46
Q

Piagetian conversation

A
  • Piagetian conversation task: Piaget tasks, knowledge that two items of equal volume remain equal volume if one of them changes shape clay
  • Older ppl do egocentric errors pick own view in mountain range task
  • Old also do moral reasoning, correctly drawing water level in tilted bottle, animism (sun is happy)
  • Piagetian tasks can be easily retrained correctly
  • Skills may be lost in reverse order they were acquired in childhood
  • May be strongly linked with changes in fluid and crystallized intelligence
  • Piaget score: better predictor of age than intelligence test
47
Q

• Need for cognition:

A

measure of drive person feels to do intellectually demanding tasks as part of their lifestyles, as opposed to actual level of intelligence
• Piagetian performance may reflect older persons level of involvement with intellectual tasks, may become less interested in later life

48
Q

• Postformal thought:

A

ability to weigh up logic and emotions, stage of intellectual development, occurs in adulthood after stage of formal operations (piaget: ppl begin to think in abstract terms)

49
Q

Summary- the bumblebee flies

A
  • Debate over size of decline
  • Compensation!
  • Studies may not resemble real life
  • Culture fair: accessible equally for people from all backgrounds
  • Education has little effect on tightly controlled intelligence test performance  not how it is in RL
  • Statistical problems; mathematical interpretation rather than testing validity of empirical observations
  • Older retained crystallized intelligence part of it because of tests not being timed etc
  • Cohort effect exaggerates all findings
  • Longitudinal studies also error ridden
  • Disuse theory some validity, but difficulties explaining why well practised individuals still display worsening of skills
  • General slowing hypothesis backed by evidence, (Brinley plot) but evidence also suggests that some variability in skills is left unexplained
  • Decline in more specific skills (attention, conceptual organization, creativity, Piagetian task performance) well documented, but cohort effects and lifestyle changes
  • Impossible to decide how much ageing change is due to cohort effect rather than ageing

Geropsychology (19 decks)

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