Cognitive Changes with Aging Flashcards
Developmental life span approach to aging
Cognition is a lifelong process
Basic cognitive processes
Foundational for higher order thought
Include sensory processes, perceptual processes, attention, short-term memory, working memory, and long-term memory
Higher-order cognitive processes
Include executive functioning, problem-solving, everyday cognition, language production and speech comprehension, wisdom, and expertise
Changes in sensory processes
Decreased auditory and visual processing
Changes in perception
Decreased auditory and visual processing
Changes in attention
No difference in sustained (focused) attention
Potentially decreased selective attention in older adults
Significant decline in alternating and divided attention
Sustained (focused) attention
Ability to concentrate on a single task for any period of time
Selective attention
Ability to focus on a task while simultaneously suppressing irrelevant distracting stimuli
Alternating attention
Ability to switch between tasks
Divided attention
Ability to pay attention to two tasks at once
Changes to short-term memory and prospective memory
Possible changes
Changes to episodic memory
A significant decline
Changes to sensory and procedural memory
Minimal to no changes
Sensory memory
Brief store of sensory information before transferring to short-term memory
Short-term memory
Stores information for 15-20 seconds without rehearsal
Working memory
Stores, maintains, and actively manipulates information
Long-term memory
Storage of information for an extended period of time
Includes explicit and implicit memory
Explicit (declarative) memory
Recollection of facts and events
Includes:
Semantic memory: understanding of meanings, understandings, and conceptual facts of the word (episodic memory can inform semantic memory)
Episodic memory: Memory of autobiographical events and understanding how, where, and when it occurred
Implicit (procedural) memory
Stores information for motor-based skills and behaviors, habits, emotional associations, priming, and classical conditioning
Prospective memory
Ability to remember future tasks without a memory aid