Suchergebnisse

Abstract

Objectives
Remembering past rewarding experiences plays a crucial rule in guiding people's decision making in the future. However, as people age, they become less accurate in remembering past events and more susceptible to forming false memories. An important question is how the decline of episodic memory and the increase of false memory may affect older adults' decision-making performance.


Methods
The current study used a newly developed paradigm in which the Deese–Roediger–McDermott (DRM) false memory paradigm was combined with a reward learning task to create robust false memories of rewarding experiences. Participants learned that some DRM picture lists brought them a monetary reward and some DRM picture lists did not bring reward. Later, their memories were tested and decision-making preferences were measured.


Results
We found that older and younger adults had almost equivalent false and true memories under the rewarding context, but older adults showed significantly lower decision-making preferences for lure pictures and rewarded pictures than younger adults. Furthermore, true and false memories were a stronger predictor of decision-making preferences for younger than for older adults.


Discussion
These results together suggest an age-related dissociation between memory and decision making that older adults may be less efficient in using their memory to guide decision making than younger adults. Future research may further investigate its underlying mechanisms and develop potential interventions aiming at strengthening the connection between memory and decision making in older adults to help improve their decision-making performance.

Abstract

Objectives
Although research has shown that the replay of encoding-specific gaze patterns during retrieval, known as gaze reinstatement, facilitates memory retrieval, little is known about whether it differentially associates with the negativity preference in memory (defined as enhanced memory for negative stimuli relative to neutral stimuli in this study) among younger and older adults. The present study aims to address this research gap.


Methods
A total of 33 older adults (16 women; aged 58–69 years, M = 63.48, SD = 2.98) and 36 younger adults (10 women; aged 18–26 years, M = 20.39, SD = 1.57) completed a remember/know recognition memory task involving negative and neutral pictures. Their eye movements were tracked during both the memory encoding and retrieval phases.


Results
Younger and older adults had better memory for negative than neutral pictures. Older adults exhibited significantly stronger gaze reinstatement for negative than neutral stimuli, while this difference was nonsignificant in younger adults. Moreover, gaze reinstatement is positively linked to memory performance in both age groups.


Discussion
The results suggest that gaze reinstatement may play age-differential roles in the negativity preference of memory. Negative valence may enhance gaze reinstatement, which improves subsequent recognition memory, particularly among older adults. The finding contributes to a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying the negative preference for memory in different age groups.

Abstract

Objective
Social connectedness is a modifiable lifestyle factor that delays age-related cognitive decline. Using cross-sectional, longitudinal, and experimental approaches, we examined whether theory of mind – inferring what others think or feel – is a potential mechanism underlying this relationship.


Methods
In Study 1, 305 community-dwelling older adults participating in two different, but related, studies completed comprehensive measures of general cognition, theory of mind, and personal social networks. We examined whether theory of mind mediated the relationship between older adults' social connectedness and cognition. 110 of those participants completed follow-up social network interviews and cognitive assessments about 1.5 years later to determine whether baseline social connectedness and theory of mind predicted cognitive change. In Study 2, 55 other older adults completed a procedural discourse task targeting a close and distant network member. We predicted that higher theory of mind would be reflected through providing more details to distant, versus close, others, especially among older adults with larger, less interconnected, personal social networks.


Results
Results revealed that theory of mind accounted for 32% of the relationship between social connectedness and overall cognition, even when covarying age, gender, education, and a control task. The effects were particularly robust for episodic memory and language. Longitudinal analyses replicated this pattern. In Study 2, older adults with larger, less dense social networks provided more details to distant versus very close network members.


Discussion
Together, these results suggest that theory of mind may provide the mechanism through which social connectedness confers cognitive resilience associated with slower cognitive decline.

Abstract

Objectives
The present study sought to investigate the influence of advice on decision making in older age, as well as the potential influence of depressive symptoms and age-related differences in the cognitively demanding emotion regulation on advice-taking.


Method
A nonclinical sample (N = 156; 50% female; 47 young: M age = 29.87, standard deviation [SD] = 5.58; 54 middle-aged: M age = 50.91, SD = 7.13; 55 older: M age = 72.51, SD = 5.33) completed a judge–advisor task to measure degree of advice-taking, as well as measures of fluid intelligence, depressive symptoms, confidence, perceived advice accuracy, and emotion regulation.


Results
Age did not influence degree of advice-taking. Greater depressive symptoms were associated with more reliance on advice, but only among individuals who identified as emotion regulators. Interestingly, older age was associated with perceiving advice to be less accurate.


Discussion
The study contributes to the sparse literature on advice-taking in older age. Cognitive and emotional factors influence the degree to which advice is incorporated into decision making in consistent ways across the adult lifespan. A key difference is that older adults take as much advice as younger adults despite perceiving the advice to be less accurate.