Age differences in memory for names: the effect of prelearned semantic associations

Previous research has shown that people-especially older adults-have a special difficulty in learning the names of newly encountered people. This is potentially attributable to the lack of direct link in memory between a face and name. The present experiments investigated whether older and younger adults could use other semantic information about a person (i.e., a "mediator") to indirectly link a name to a face. In each of two experiments, older and younger adults prelearned associations between semantic information (character information or occupations) and names. They then attempted to learn links between faces and either the names or semantic information. In the "unmediated" condition, participants learned only one piece of information (either the name or the semantic information) about each face, whereas in the "mediated" condition, they learned both the to-be-tested information as well as the "mediator" (i.e., both the name and the other semantic information). Experiment 1 showed that, at a simple level, both age groups could use character information ("good" or "bad") to help recognize people's names, given their faces. Experiment 2 showed that knowing the occupation associated with a name helped both age groups to later recall the name associated with a given face.     

Cross-modality matches between color and size differences

Eighteen undergraduates, 9 males and 9 females, were asked to make two geometric figures appear as different as two primary colors. They adjusted the size of one of the figures. There was a significant relation between the ratio of wave lengths of the colors and the ratios produced between the figures. Females tended to see a given color pair as more different than males.     

The colors of the alphabet: naturally-biased associations between shape and color

Many letters of the alphabet are consistently mapped to specific colors in English-speaking adults, both in the general population and in individuals with grapheme-color synaesthesia who perceive letters in color. Here, across six experiments, we tested the ubiquity of the color/letter associations with typically developing toddlers, literate children, and adults. We found that pre-literate children associate O with white and X with black and discovered that they also associate I and ameboid nonsense shapes with white; Z and jagged nonsense shapes with black; and C with yellow; but do not make a number of other associations (B blue; Y yellow; A red; G green) seen in literate children and adults. The toddlers' mappings were based on the shape and not the sound of the letter. The results suggest that sensory cortical organization initially binds specific colors to some specific shapes and that learning to read can induce additional associations, likely through the influence of higher order networks as letters take on meaning.     

Age differences in children's pain.

A cross-sectional study of venipuncture pain and anxiety was conducted with 180 consecutively referred children and their parents. Analysis indicated that younger children report more venipuncture pain than older children. Anxiety was related to both age and pain. As well, anxiety was lowest among children with no previous venipuncture experience and among those with the greatest experience.     

Individual differences in emotion regulation moderate the associations between empathy and affective distress

Individual differences in empathy can have positive and negative psychological outcomes. Yet, individual differences in the processing and regulation of empathy-induced emotion have not been fully explored within this dynamic. This study was designed to explore whether individual differences in emotion regulation strategies moderated the effects of empathy on common forms of affective distress. Eight hundred and forty four participants completed survey measures of trait empathy, emotion regulation strategies, and symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress. Affective empathy typically predicted greater affective distress, but the effects on depression and anxiety were offset when people were effective at reappraising their emotions. Cognitive empathy predicted lower distress on average, but this beneficial effect on anxiety and stress was absent in those who typically suppressed their emotions. Finally, suppression unexpectedly reduced the depression and stress reported for people high in affective empathy. Individual differences in emotion regulation are an important moderator between empathy and psychological health, and thus a useful target for intervention.     

Age differences in perception of risk.

Age differences in perception of risk and the likelihood of disregarding warning signs were examined. A total of 358 adults, between 18 and 85 years old, were asked to rate 12 warning labels with respect to (a) how risky it would be to ignore the warning, (b) how likely it was that they would disregard the warning, and (c) how familiar they were with the labels. The older groups indicated higher risk in ignoring the signs than did the younger group. The older subjects were also less willing to disregard the signs than the younger subjects.     

Age differences in using source-relevant cues.

Subjects heard words originating from 2 speakers and later decided which of the 2 speakers said the words. Older adults had difficulty with source monitoring when perceptual cues from 2 sources were similar (2 female speakers), but this difficulty was overcome when perceptual cues were distinctive (a male and a female speaker) and were the only salient cues to source. Older adults also benefited from distinctive spatial cues when these were the only salient cues to source. Older adults, however, experienced difficulties in using multiple cues (both perceptual and spatial) to source effectively, whereas younger adults were able to use multiple cues to enhance their source-monitoring performance. It is suggested that age differences in source monitoring result from differential cue utilization.     

Sex differences in associations of temperament with love-styles.

University students (439 women, 111 men) completed a questionnaire that included items assessing temperament and love-styles. While a single temperament and love-style association characterized the men, all five temperament dimensions were predictive of certain of the love-styles for the women.     

Sex differences in the occupational choices of second graders

A questionnaire was administered to 61 second graders. Sexual differences in occupational choices were apparent. Boys chose twice as many occupations as girls. Of 29 occupations selected as “most desirable,” only one was mentioned by both boys and girls. Of 37 occupations selected as “least desirable,” only two were mentioned by both sexes. More boys than girls knew their father's occupation. Although 76% of the girls knew their father's occupation, they did not select that occupation for themselves. A series of hypotheses based on the above data was generated.     

Age differences in the acculturation process

Age differences were assessed in a conceptual model that seeks to explain how acculturation affects psychological well-being among Mexican Americans. The data were from a national probability sample of 859 persons of Mexican decent. It was hypothesized that low acculturation creates financial stress. Moreover, low acculturation and financial stress were in turn predicted to erode feelings of personal control and self-esteem. Finally, diminished feelings of control and low self-esteem were hypothesized to exert a negative impact on psychological well-being. When data from respondents of all ages was assessed, empirical support was found for all of the hypotheses except the linkage between acculturation and financial stress. However, few age differences emerged in the model. The authors conclude that older Mexican Americans may not be more vulnerable to the stressors associated with acculturation.     

Age differences in rereading

Younger and older adults read a series of expository and narrative passages twice in order to answer comprehension questions. Reading time was used to index attentional allocation to word, textbase, and situation model processing and to assess shifts in the allocation policy from the first to the second reading. Older readers' comprehension was at least as good as that of younger readers. Analysis of reading times suggested that for both genres, older adults allocated more attention to situation model features than younger adults did on the first reading, whereas young and old allocated attention similarly to this level of representation on the second reading, suggesting that mature readers may give greater priority to situation model construction when first encountering text. Also, for both genres, older adults showed relatively less facilitation than the young in word-level processing in rereading, suggesting that representation at this level is not as firmly established during reading or decays more quickly for older readers. For narrative texts only, this pattern also obtained for textbase processing. Collectively, these data show that age equivalence in text comprehension at the molar level may be accomplished through different processing routes at the molecular level.     

Age differences in maximization

Studies have shown the existence of inter-individual differences in choice behavior, some people seeking for the best (maximizers) and others for a good enough option (satisficers). Here, we explored whether these inter-individual differences are influenced by aging and common personality traits (i.e., Big Five model). Young (n = 125; 19 years old) and elderly adults (n = 101; 86 years old) completed different scales assessing – among others – maximization and Big Five traits. Our results indicated a greater proportion of maximizers in elderly than in young adults. We also found a minor association between maximization and Big Five traits in both groups. In sum, aging influences choice behavior, but this cannot be explained by changes of common personality traits.     

Individual differences in vagal regulation moderate associations between daily affect and daily couple interactions

Previous research suggests that cardiac vagal regulation (indexed by respiratory sinus arrhythmia, or RSA) provides a physiological substrate for affect regulation, which presumably underlies adaptive interpersonal functioning.The authors tested these associations in the context of daily interactions between 68 cohabiting couples. Participants underwent a laboratory assessment of RSA during rest and also during a series of psychological stressors. Subsequently, they kept daily measures of affect and interaction quality for 21 days. Individual differences in baseline and stress levels of RSA moderated within-person associations between daily affect and the quality of couple interactions. The pattern of results differed for women versus men. Men with lower vagal tone or higher vagal reactivity had stronger associations between daily negative affect and daily negative interactions, and men with higher vagal tone had more positive daily interactions overall. Women with higher vagal tone had stronger associations between daily positive affect and daily positive interactions.     

Age and sex differences in behaviors mediated by the ventromedial hypothalamus.

Age and sex differences in behaviors mediated by the ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH) were examined in the rat. Circadian rhythm, emotionality, and taste responsiveness (except for responsiveness to quinine adulteration) were found to shift, in one or both sexes, toward a pattern suggesting decreased VMH functioning with increasing age. A post hoc analysis of the configuration of positive and negative results suggests that, for those behaviors known to show both immediate and sustained effects of VMH lesion, male rats show a marked trend toward the lesioned pattern of behavior with increasing age, whereas females show weaker or nonexistent age trends in the same behaviors. For those behaviors that have been shown to change only during the static, obese phase, or for which data re controversial as to whether changes take place as a result of the VMH lesion at all, this age and sex pattern does not emerge.     

Age and visual field differences in computing visual-spatial relations.

Age and brain hemispheric differences in visual-spatial performance were investigated using 2 versions of categorical and coordinate (metric) spatial relations tasks. Thirty-two young adults (M = 19.2 years) and 32 older adults (M = 68.8 years) participated. An overall age-related decrement in computing visual-spatial relations was obtained for lateralized presentations and when items were presented centrally. In contrast to some previous findings, there was no evidence to suggest differential aging of the right hemisphere in computing visual-spatial relations.     

Cross-species differences in color categorization

Berlin and Kay (1969) found systematic restrictions in the color terms of the world’s languages and were inclined to look to the primate visual system for their origin. Because the visual system does not provide adequate neurophysiological discontinuities to supply natural color category boundaries, and because recent evidence points to a linguistic origin (Davidoff, Davies, & Roberson, 1999), a new approach was used to investigate the controversial issue of the origin of color categories. Baboons and humans were given the same task of matching-to-sample colors that crossed the blue/green boundary. The data and consequent modeling were remarkably clear-cut. All human subjects matched our generalization probe stimuli as if to a sharp boundary close to the midpoint between their training items. Despite good color discrimination, none of the baboons showed any inclination to match to a single boundary but rather responded with two boundaries close to the training stimuli. The data give no support to the claim that color categories are explicitly instantiated in the primate color vision system.     

Age differences in the relationship between visual movement imagery and performance on kinesthetic acuity tests

The Vividness of Movement Imagery Questionnaire was administered to 280 fourteen-year-olds and 186 ten-year-olds, who were then tested on measures of kinesthetic acuity. The relationship between visual movement imagery and kinesthetic acuity scores was significant in the older group: Those with high levels of visual movement imagery performed significantly better on measures of kinesthetic acuity than did those with low imagery. No such effect was found in the younger group. The results indicate that for adolescents, the confounding effect of visual imagery affects the researcher's ability to interpret kinesthetic acuity scores. The relationship between imagery and kinesthesis appears to develop over the period between 10 and 14 years, although such an interpretation may be premature because the measurement of visual movement imagery in the younger age group is problematic.