Sensation, Perception, Attention Flashcards
Information Processing speed
Decreases with age
-Processing time/reaction time increases
(Salthouse 1996)
Salthouse 1996 - Limited time mechanism
Slow reaction times prevents completion of tasks
Salthouse 1996- simultaneity mechanism
Slow reaction times prevents that two processes can be carried our simultaneously
Age complexity hypothesis (Salthouse 1991)
The disadvantage of people older than 65+ increases with the complexity of the tasks
Stimulus persistence theory
Why should RT speed have a higher effect on the solving of complex problems ?
When a stimulus is processed for longer in the CNS, it takes longer until the next stimulus can be processed (Gilmore, 1996)
Indicator: Larger inter-stimulus intervals are necessary, both in pre-school children and adults 65+
Speed in children
RT speeds up when children attend schools
- This acceleration of RT also influences inductive reasoning
Speed not age??
RT speed is the central parameter that mediates the effect of chronological age
RT speed has an impact on both working memory and other memory tasks such as free recall, cued recall and spatial recall
Working memory has onlu impact on free recall and cued recall but not spatial recall
process specificity
RT speed in both young and old adults is dependent on the kind of task requirements
small age differences in arithmetics
large age differences in visual pattern recognition - older adults were slower in pattern detection
Signal detection theory
older adults are more careful than younger adults - fewer false positives (Botwinik 1984)
- older adults reject distractors more (less response bias)
- older adults have more false negatives, that is they mistake a relevant stimulus as a distractor
Baron and Study (1990)
Recognition of password like stimuli
-No age difference with respect to response bias
-Age difference with respect to conditioning
=pay-off experimental design
- young participants reacted more extremely towards conditioning that old participants
Gruhn Smith and Baltes, 2005
No overall age differences in memory performance
younger adults remember positive words better
Adults 64+ showed no significant conditioning effect
Can the slowdown be averted
Cognitive enrichment hypothesis makes no difference between physical and mental practice
sportive practice improves bloodflow and regernerates the brain, reduces stress and cortisol (McEwen, 2002_
Cognitive practice improves verbal memory (Hultsch 1999)
Social interactions improve cognitive functions (Stine-Morrow et al 2007)
Chicken and egg problamo
Ageing of stress mechanisms
stress mechanisms can become hyperactive or inefficient (mcewen, 2002)
stress hormone cortisol becomes regulated via oestrogen in women
estrogene progesterone cycle
changes in the structure of the eye
glaucoma - increased intra ocular pressure
pupul circumference shrinks
lens:
- increased size and thickness
- yellowing (change in perception of blues)
- senile cataracts
retina:
- macular degeneration - perturbation of central field of vision
- diabetic retinopathology
perception of movement
worse perception of moving objects
lower sensitivity for different object speeds
overestimation of speed of slowly moving vehicles
deteriorating depth perception - decreasing brain lateralisation
changes in the structure of the ear
Conductive hearing loss:
- mechanical causes
- impacts on all frequencies
- structural changes in the inner and outer ear
Neurally caused loss of hearing:
- damage and degeneration of the hairs in the cochlea on the membrane of the inner ear
Presbycusis
old age hearing loss
- very common, occurs more often in european americans
- lower sensitivity for higher frequencies
- occurs also with consonants at higher frequency
- phonemic regression (hearing without understanding)
- worse for men
- can occur in young adults caused by loud noise
- alcohol smoking etc
Communication with older adults
study
-no hearing aid: costs, vanity, social stigma
Elderspeak (Kemper, 1994)
- Reduced grammatical complexity
- simple words and more repetiton
- slower tempo
- shorter sentences
- patronising language (only appreciated by relatively helpless and dependent older adults in institutions
- exaggerated prosody
Age differences in sustained attention
- older adults have fewer thoughts that are not task relevant, that is higher concentration (Giambra, 1989)
- There are no age differences in determining the time in the clock task (Mackworth- clock-test, madden + Allen, 1996)
Age differences in divided attention
divided attention = parallel processes, monitoring two or more operations at the same time
- older drivers have more accidents at crossings, but fewer ‘head-on’ collisions and one-car accidents
speed and parallel operation of several controls
- speed and distributed attention were correlated significantly independent of age
- more slower, older drivers
- was valid for drivers of all ages
theoretical models about deterioration of attention
reduced attentional resources/ capacity model:
- quantitative decrease of resourcs
- age or speed?
inhibitory deficit model:
-reduced ability to inhibit irrelevant stimuli
frontal lobe model:
-working memory in the frontal lobe age so that decisions are delayed and parallel processing is aggravated
