The Underlying Architecture of the Creative Worlds of Children: Young Persons from the UK and China Unwittingly Generate More Concepts that Violate Ontological Category Structure Than Do Older Adults During an Exemplar‐Generation Task

Is our cognition the underlying architecture of the recurrent and pan‐cultural imaginative ideas of children and adolescents? Recent cross‐cultural studies show that children and adolescents recall proportionally more creative, counterintuitive concepts than older adults. One outstanding concern is that cultural transmission is also constrained by how concepts emerge into culture. Hence, a broad sample of age demographics in UK and China (10–58 years; N = 90) participated in an exemplar‐generation task where participants assembled statements exemplifying conceptual categories of positive and negative emotion, imagery, humor, and inferential potential. Multiple regression analysis considering counterintuitiveness and age revealed young persons generated significantly more imaginative, counterintuitive ideas than older adults, in both UK and China groups. This cross‐cultural support for an underlying cognitive architecture of human creativity builds on Ward's (1994) research on structured imagination.     

Images of midlife development among young,middle-aged,and older adults

This study examined patterns of perceived change across adulthood in a sample of 121 young (M age=19.8 years), middle-aged (M age=47.9 years) and older (M age=74.6 years) adults. Subjects rated amount of stress in life domains, salience of life course issues, and nature of personal attributes for young, middle-aged, and older targets. Seven prototypical patterns of perceived change were found. Midlife was seen as a period with many responsibilities, increased stress in several domains, and little time for leisure, but also as a peak in competence, ability to handle stress, sense of control, productivity, and social responsibility. The findings are discussed in terms of losses, which were seen primarily in the physical realm, and gains, which were mainly seen in the psychological and social realms.     

Age-related development of self-regulation: Evidence on stability and change in action orientation

Action (vs. state) orientation describes the ability to modulate affect and is at the core of goal-directed self-regulation. However, evidence on stability and change over time is scarce. In Study 1 (N = 368 couples), we investigated measurement invariance of action orientation (measured with the ACS-90) as well as rank-order stability and mean-level change over a period of four years. We report results from three samples with young adults (Study 2). Measurement invariance was obtained for an adjusted ACS-90 scale after removing 4 items. Rank-order stability was high. In both studies, one of two subscales – prospective action orientation – increased over time. Positive change was most consistent for middle-aged adults, implying that self-regulatory abilities improve during middle adulthood.     

Altered behavioral and neural responsiveness to counterfactual gains in the elderly

Counterfactual information processing refers to the consideration of events that did not occur in comparison to those actually experienced, in order to determine optimal actions, and can be formulated as computational learning signals, referred to as fictive prediction errors. Decision making and the neural circuitry for counterfactual processing are altered in healthy elderly adults. This experiment investigated age differences in neural systems for decision making with knowledge of counterfactual outcomes. Two groups of healthy adult participants, young (N = 30; ages 19–30 years) and elderly (N = 19; ages 65–80 years), were scanned with fMRI during 240 trials of a strategic sequential investment task in which a particular strategy of differentially weighting counterfactual gains and losses during valuation is associated with more optimal performance. Elderly participants earned significantly less than young adults, differently weighted counterfactual consequences and exploited task knowledge, and exhibited altered activity in a fronto-striatal circuit while making choices, compared to young adults. The degree to which task knowledge was exploited was positively correlated with modulation of neural activity by expected value in the vmPFC for young adults, but not in the elderly. These findings demonstrate that elderly participants’ poor task performance may be related to different counterfactual processing.     

Parents Perceived as Peers: Filial Maturity in Adulthood

Filial maturity refers to the adult offspring’s perception of parents as individuals with past histories and limitations. Three studies were conducted to measure filial maturity and its relational and developmental correlates. Study 1 included adults aged 18–59 to empirically assess filial maturity and its correlates across adulthood. Study 2 examined associations between filial maturity and constructs indicative of emerging adulthood (e.g., emotional autonomy), among people aged 18–24. Study 3 included young and middle-aged adults (N = 158; ages: 22–49) and their parents to assess associations between parents’ reports of relationship quality and offspring’s filial maturity. Offspring reported greater filial maturity with mothers and with parents with whom they reported greater relationship quality, closeness, and autonomy. Parents who reported greater relationship quality had offspring who reported greater filial maturity. Findings suggest that filial maturity is a dyadic phenomenon that influences parent child relationship quality across the lifespan.     

Mechanisms of postural control in older adults based on surface electromyography data

ObjectivesThe present study aimed to clarify the mechanisms of postural control during standing in older adults and document the mechanisms of age-related motor control based on changes in muscle activities.MethodsA total of 26 healthy male adults (older adult group, ≥65–78 years: n = 16; younger adult group, 20–23 years: n = 10) participated in this study. Ground reaction force and kinematic data of the lower limbs (hip, knee, and ankle), and electromyographic data from 6 postural muscles on the right side were recorded and quantified for each motor phase during rapid voluntary center of pressure (COP) shift.ResultsAlthough hip strategy was more frequently observed in older adults than in young adults (56.3% vs. 20.0%), no muscle activity of hip agonists was observed in some (31.3%) older adults. Furthermore, older adults had a statistically significant delay in the inhibition of postural muscles during anticipatory postural adjustments (p < 0.05). After the onset of COP motion, the co-contraction time between agonists and antagonists was significantly prolonged in the older adults than in the younger adults (p < 0.05), and the reciprocal muscle pattern was unclear in the older adults. Prior to the termination of movement, agonist activity continued longer in the older adult group than in the younger adult group; that is, inhibition was insufficient in the older adult group.ConclusionA series of postural strategies during the voluntary movement task were altered in older adults, and this was significantly related not only with the activation but also the inhibition of postural muscles.     

Imitation of Goal Engagement and Disengagement Processes in Romantic Relationships

Individual differences in goal engagement and goal disengagement processes have been demonstrated to be related to goal attainment, health, and emotional well-being. However, there is a dearth of studies on the developmental conditions of individual differences in these processes. Social learning processes contribute to the formation of individual dispositions even in adulthood. As one pathway of learning, we investigated observational learning of goal regulation processes in romantic relationships in two experimental studies. Study 1 (N = 67 couples, M = 32.65 years) replicated a previous finding that observing partners imitated their partner's goal regulation processes in the same task and extended it by showing transfer effects to another task. Study 2 (N = 60 couples, M = 25.9 years) demonstrated that—given a lack of praise of the modelled actions—partners still imitated goal regulation processes but to a smaller extent. These findings lend support for observational learning as a pathway to individual differences in the application of goal regulation processes. © 2020 The Authors. European Journal of Personality published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Association of Personality Psychology     

Formal reasoning in late adulthood: The role of semantic content and metacognitive strategy

Two experiments explored the availability of deductive or formal reasoning in late adulthood. In Experiment 1, fifty young (M=19.0 years) and 50 elderly adults (M=81.0 years) were assessed using adaptations of Wason's selection task and rated task content for familiarity, affect, and agreement. In Experiment 2, 100 young (M=21.0 years) and 100 elderly adults (M=81.0 years) were similarly assessed, with half of the subjects in each age group receiving a metacognitive strategy to facilitate reasoning. Results from Experiment 1 indicated equivalent reasoning among the groups on problems employed in earlier developmental research. In contrast, problems constructed to entail affect resulted in poorer performance by older adults. In Experiment 2, both young and older adults who used the metacognitive strategy reasoned equally acrossall problems. In both experiments, familiarity and agreement did not play a role in deductive reasoning performance, but affect seemed to be an interfering factor. Results are discussed in terms of competence-procedure and stability-decrement models of adult cognitive development.     

Relationships between working memory and intelligence from a developmental perspective: Convergent evidence from a neo-Piagetian and a psychometric approach

The objective of this paper, in line with the other papers of this special issue, is to show the potentialities of combining intelligence research and cognitive psychology. The development of intelligence is here addressed from two usually separate perspectives, a psychometric one, and a neo-Piagetian one. Two studies are presented. In Experiment 1, children aged 6, 7, 9, and 11 years (N = 100) were administered two working memory tasks and three Piagetian tasks. In Experiment 2, children aged 8–12 years (N = 207), young adults aged 20–35 (N = 160), and older adults aged 60–88 years (N = 135) were administered working memory and processing speed tasks, as well as the Raven Standard Matrices task. Regression and commonality analyses were run to analyse the age-related variance in the Piagetian tasks (Study 1), and in the Raven task (Study 2). In both experiments, working memory accounted for a large part of the age differences observed, but more so in Study 1 (Piagetian tasks) than in Study 2 (Raven task). It is concluded that working memory mediates the effect of age on fluid intelligence during childhood and during adulthood.     

Overoptimism about future knowledge: Early arrogance?

Abstract

Three studies explored whether young children (5–7 years) have more optimistic views of their future knowledge than older children (8–12 years) and adults. In Study 1, younger children were more likely than older children and adults to expect greater knowledge in both young and mature protagonists. Both groups of children saw knowledge rising at a faster rate into adulthood than adult participants did. All ages judged moral knowledge as much easier to acquire than other types of knowledge, such as artifacts. In Study 2, all children saw their own future knowledge in especially optimistic terms in comparison to ratings by adults, and the older children exhibited a self-enhancement bias. Study 3 found an overall preference for the acquisition of positively valenced future knowledge, particularly for the 8- to 12-year olds and in the domain of morality, suggesting pragmatic underpinnings for these judgments.     

Age-Specific Effects of Lexical–Semantic Networks on Word Production

The lexical–semantic organization of the mental lexicon is bound to change across the lifespan. Nevertheless, the effects of lexical–semantic factors on word processing are usually based on studies enrolling young adult cohorts. The current study aims to investigate to what extent age-specific semantic organization predicts performance in referential word production over the lifespan, from school-age children to older adults. In Study 1, we conducted a free semantic association task with participants from six age-groups (ranging from 10 to 80 years old) to compute measures that capture age-specific properties of the mental lexicon across the lifespan. These measures relate to lifespan changes in the Available Richness of the mental lexicon and in the lexical–semantic Network Prototypicality of concrete words. In Study 2, we used the collected data to predict performance in a picture-naming task on a new group of participants within the same age-groups as for Study 1. The results show that age-specific semantic Available Richness and Network Prototypicality affect word production speed while the semantic variables collected only in young adults do not. A richer and more prototypical semantic network across subjects from a given age-group is associated with faster word production speed. The current results indicate that age-specific semantic organization is crucial to predict lexical–semantic behaviors across the lifespan. Similarly, these results also provide cues to the understanding of the lexical–semantic properties of the mental lexicon and to lexical selection in referential tasks.     

General and contextualized emotion goals and its link with well-being across late,middle, and young adulthood

Prior research with young adults has shown how emotion goals (i.e., cognitive representations of preferred emotional states) can be instrumental (positive or negative) depending on the context and how this context sensitivity is linked to higher well-being. However, this research has overlooked older adults. We argue it is important looking at this age group as there is mixed evidence given that on one hand they have been described as exhibiting a positivity bias (hedonic orientation; preference for positive emotion goals), and on the other hand, being capable of suppressing this when it is adaptive to do so. Importantly, this bias towards positive emotion goals has been linked to better emotion regulation and higher well-being in older adults. In order to understand whether older adults can also exhibit instrumental emotion goals and whether this is linked to well-being, we conducted an exploratory study with older (N = 43, M_age = 68.33), middle (N = 47, M_age = 43.83), and young adults (N = 47; M_age = 21.98) who reported about their general and contextual emotion goals (in collaboration and confrontation), their well-being, and their current positive and negative affect. Although older adults reported lower negative affect than young adults, there were no age differences for general and contextualized emotion goals. Across the three age groups, a higher preference for happiness in general and in collaboration was linked to higher well-being. The obtained results highlight the need to study emotion goals longitudinally to better understand their possible changes throughout the lifespan and their influence on well-being.     

Formal reasoning in Japanese older adults: The role of metacognitive strategy,task content,and social factors

This study investigated the availability of deductive reasoning competence in late adulthood. Forty-six Japanese older (mean age =71 years) and 58 Japanese young adults (mean age =19.6 years) were assessed for formal or deductive reasoning using Overton's (1990) revision of the four-card selection task. For older adults, metacognitive strategy—operating as a procedure designed to access reasoning competence—resulted in enhanced performance levels. When the semantic content of the reasoning task involved emotional issues, however, the metacognitive strategy failed to facilitate reasoning performance. This suggests that reasoning competence is available in late adulthood but that performance is susceptible to contextual variables. Social factors were not significantly related to older adults' reasoning performance. Thus, assessment of these factors may have been based on too broad a definition to describe adequately the status of the older adults. For the young, only semantic task content was related to reasoning performance.     

Assessing the restorative value of the environment: A study on the elderly in comparison with young adults and adolescents

Nature is not only appreciated for its aesthetic characteristics, but is also a useful resource for people. It plays an important role in the process of attention restoration and recovery from stress. Young adults and adolescents assess natural environments as being more restorative than built environments. This study sought to test whether natural environments are more restorative than built environments for the elderly as well. The study is made up of two phases: (1) an empirical study with the elderly, (2) a comparison of data from the elderly with two earlier studies of adolescents and young adults. To achieve this aim a group of 50 elderly people (age range: 62–93 years) was asked to rate the restorative value of 10 pictures of environments ranging from natural to built, covering 5 environmental categories: housing, industrial zone, city streets, hills, and lakes. Each picture was assessed using the Perceived Restorativeness Scale. Participants were from three living situations: elderly living in a place for old people located in a green area (N = 18), elderly living in a place for old people located in an urban area (N = 20), and elderly living in their own homes (N = 12). Results showed that all three groups of the elderly evaluated the natural environments as more restorative than the built environments. The elderly data were then compared with the data from a sample of adolescents (N = 60, age range: 11–14 years) and of young adults (N = 100, age range: 18–29 years). All three groups rated natural environments as more restorative than built environments. The evaluation of preference and familiarity, however, differed between age groups, with adolescence being less familiar with and less in favour of natural environments than young adults and the elderly. Restorativeness and preference were correlated among all age groups, while familiarity and restorativeness were correlated only among the elderly.     

Individual Differences in Habitual Social Goals and Daily Well‐Being: The Role of Age and Relationship Closeness

There is a robust evidence that social approach goals (i.e. approach of positive social outcomes) have positive consequences and social avoidance goals (i.e. avoidance of negative social outcomes) have negative consequences for subjective well‐being in young adulthood. Little is known about individual differences in social goals in later life. The current diary study with young (n = 212), middle‐aged (n = 232), and older adults (n = 229) tested––and supported––the hypotheses that age (i) differentially predicts the strength of habitual approach and avoidance goals in close and peripheral relationships and (ii) moderates the relation of approach and avoidance goals in peripheral (but not close) relationships and daily outcomes (subjective well‐being, subjective health, and satisfaction with social encounters). Older adults compared to younger adults reported higher levels of avoidance goals in peripheral (but not close) relationships. Younger adults who reported high levels of approach goals and older adults who reported high levels of avoidance goals in peripheral relationships experienced the most positive daily outcomes. In addition, social goals moderated some of the associations between (positive and negative) daily interactions and daily outcomes. Results underscore the importance of the closeness of social partners for individual differences in social goals across adulthood. © 2019 European Association of Personality Psychology     

When it's not easy to do the right thing: Developmental changes in understanding cost drive evaluations of moral praiseworthiness

Recent work identified a shift in judgments of moral praiseworthiness that occurs late in development: adults recognize the virtue of moral actions that involve resolving an inner conflict between moral desires and selfish desires. Children, in contrast, praise agents who do the right thing in the absence of inner conflict. This finding stands in contrast with other work showing that children incorporate notions of cost and effort into their social reasoning. Using a modified version of Starmans and Bloom's (2016) vignettes, we show that understanding the virtue of costly moral action precedes understanding the virtue of resolving inner conflict. In two studies (N = 192 children, range = 4.00–9.95 years; and N = 193 adults), we contrasted a character who paid a personal cost (psychological in Study 1, physical in Study 2) to perform a moral action with another who acted morally without paying a cost. We found a developmental progression; 8- and 9-year-old children and adults recognized the praiseworthiness of moral actions that are psychologically or physically costly. Six- and 7-year-old children only recognized the praiseworthiness of moral actions that are physically costly, but not actions that are psychologically costly. Moreover, neither adults nor children inferred that paying a cost to act morally required having a moral desire or resolving inner conflict. These results suggest that both adults and children conceptualize obligation as a direct motivational force on actions. They further suggest that costly choice—a hallmark of moral agency—is implicated in judgments of praiseworthiness early in development.     

Feedback on health status and peer popularity influences social risk decision-making processes in adolescents and young adults

Cognitive and dual-processes models, involving cognitive and socio-emotional components, for adolescents’ risky behaviour have been proposed. This study tested their predictions by manipulating the presence or absence of feedback about gains and losses in health and peer popularity in a decision-making task with peers. Risky (e.g., taking or refusing a drug) and ambiguous decisions (e.g., eating hamburger or hotdog) were examined in 256 adolescents (aged 13–14; 15–16; 17–18) and young adults (aged 19–20). Participants made more risky choices and required less decision time when receiving feedback about the negative consequences on health and positive consequences on peer popularity. Decision times were comparatively larger for risky than for safe options in late adolescence and young adulthood. Results supported the dual-processes model showing that, though late cognitive changes were observed that could eventually lead to the selection of safe options, feedback gains in peer popularity outweighed unhealthy consequences leading to risky decisions.     

Adaptation in conflict: are conflict-triggered control adjustments protected in the presence of motivational distractors?

Solving a conflict between two response options in an interference task has been found to increase control in a subsequent conflict situation. The present research examined whether such conflict adaptation persists in the presence of distractors that have motivational relevance and are therefore competing for attentional resources (i.e. they signal opportunities for monetary gains or losses contingent on overall task performance). In an adjusted flanker task, motivational (versus neutral versus no) distractors were presented together with the current trial while the previous trial never included any distractor. Accumulated evidence across three studies showed that motivational distractors reduced the conflict adaptation effect. This was found irrespective of the location at which the distractor occurred (Study 1), and independent of its valence (i.e. reward or loss, Study 2). Study 3 and a merged data analysis ruled out low-level alternative explanations. In line with a dual competition account (Pessoa, L. (2009). How do emotion and motivation direct executive control? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13(4), 160–166. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2009.01.006), our results show that conflict adaptation is not fully protected in the presence of motivational distractors. We discuss whether this should be interpreted as a limitation, or as reflecting the flexibility of the control system in dealing with motivationally relevant information.     

Developmental Trends in False Memory Across Adolescence and Young Adulthood: A Comparison of DRM and Memory Conformity Paradigms

Little is known about the reliability of eyewitness memory among adolescents as most memory research has focused primarily on adults and young children. A number of studies recently have emerged outlining conditions where memory suggestibility increases from early childhood to adulthood. These developmental reversals are found in semantic association tasks such as the Deese–Roediger–McDermott (DRM) paradigm and have not yet been thoroughly investigated among adolescents. In the current study, we examined DRM performance among 11–21 year olds (N = 245). Extending the work comparing children and adults, false memory on the DRM task increased with age. False memory on the DRM task was not associated with false memory on a memory conformity task. The different memory processes involved with the tasks and the implications for legal psychology are discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.