Sensation, Perception, Attention

Question 1

Information Processing speed

Answer 1

Decreases with age
-Processing time/reaction time increases

(Salthouse 1996)

Question 2

Salthouse 1996 - Limited time mechanism

Answer 2

Slow reaction times prevents completion of tasks

Question 3

Salthouse 1996- simultaneity mechanism

Answer 3

Slow reaction times prevents that two processes can be carried our simultaneously

Question 4

Age complexity hypothesis (Salthouse 1991)

Answer 4

The disadvantage of people older than 65+ increases with the complexity of the tasks

Question 5

Stimulus persistence theory

Answer 5

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+

Question 6

Speed in children

Answer 6

RT speeds up when children attend schools

• This acceleration of RT also influences inductive reasoning

Question 7

Speed not age??

Answer 7

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

Question 8

process specificity

Answer 8

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

Question 9

Signal detection theory

Answer 9

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

Question 10

Baron and Study (1990)

Answer 10

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

Question 11

Gruhn Smith and Baltes, 2005

Answer 11

No overall age differences in memory performance

younger adults remember positive words better

Adults 64+ showed no significant conditioning effect

Question 12

Can the slowdown be averted

Answer 12

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

Question 13

Ageing of stress mechanisms

Answer 13

stress mechanisms can become hyperactive or inefficient (mcewen, 2002)

stress hormone cortisol becomes regulated via oestrogen in women

estrogene progesterone cycle

Question 14

changes in the structure of the eye

Answer 14

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

Question 15

perception of movement

Answer 15

worse perception of moving objects

lower sensitivity for different object speeds

overestimation of speed of slowly moving vehicles

deteriorating depth perception - decreasing brain lateralisation

Question 16

changes in the structure of the ear

Answer 16

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

Question 17

Presbycusis

Answer 17

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

Question 18

Communication with older adults

study

Answer 18

-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

Question 19

Age differences in sustained attention

Answer 19

• 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)

Question 20

Age differences in divided attention

Answer 20

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

Question 21

speed and parallel operation of several controls

Answer 21

• speed and distributed attention were correlated significantly independent of age
• more slower, older drivers
• was valid for drivers of all ages

Question 22

theoretical models about deterioration of attention

Answer 22

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