Is there anything special about the aging of source memory?

A battery of cognitive tests designed to measure the constructs of episodic memory, perceptual speed, fluid ability, executive functioning, and vocabulary was administered to 330 adults between the ages of 18 and 89. Each participant also performed 4 different tasks designed to assess source memory. Structural equation modeling was used to evaluate the validity of a source-memory construct and to explore the relation of the source-memory construct to age and to the other cognitive variables. The variance common to the source-memory variables was strongly related to other cognitive abilities, suggesting that source memory may not have discriminant validity, and there were only small unique age-related effects on the source-memory construct after the influence of other abilities was considered.     

Personality predicts prospective memory task performance: an adult lifespan study

Do interindividual differences in prospective memory task performance reflect individual differences in personality and lifestyle? Do the cognitive abilities known to change with age retain their power to predict episodic prospective memory task performance after controlling for personality and lifestyle variables, and do personality and lifestyle variables offer predictive power apart from that provided by cognitive ability measures? To answer these questions, we conducted a study with community‐living healthy individuals (n= 141) between 18 and 81 years of age. They completed three different episodic prospective memory tasks – two laboratory tasks and one field task – as well as various measures of personality, lifestyle, and cognitive ability. The results indicated that personality and lifestyle reliably predicted who will succeed and who will fail on all three episodic prospective memory tasks. Conscientiousness predicted performance on two of the prospective memory tasks; socially prescribed perfectionism and neuroticism each predicted performance on one of the prospective memory tasks. Cognitive ability predicted performance on one of the laboratory prospective memory tasks but not on the other two prospective memory tasks. After we controlled for individual differences in personality and lifestyle variables, cognitive ability was no longer able to predict performance on the laboratory prospective memory task. By contrast, controlling for cognitive ability had no influence on the predictive power of the personality and lifestyle variables.     

抑制和加工速度与液态智力的年老化

研究抑制能力和加工速度在液态智力年老化过程中的相对作用。被试为142名18~85岁健康成年人,完成包括抑制优势反应、加工速度和液态智力共13项测验。分层回归分析显示,抑制能力与年龄相关的特异性变异,在控制简单的速度变量时较控制复杂的速度变量时更大;结构方程分析表明,对液态智力年老化的中介作用,当选取较复杂的速度变量时加工速度的作用更大,而当选取较简单的速度变量时抑制能力的作用更大。研究结果表明,在液态智力的年老化过程中,除了加工速度的作用之外,抑制能力也起重要的中介作用。该结果为认知年老化的抑制理论和执行衰退假说提供了认知行为学研究的证据,并且对加工速度理论作了有益的补充和修正     

Complex span tasks, simple span tasks, and cognitive abilities: A reanalysis of key studies

There is great interest in the relationships between memory span tasks and cognitive abilities. However, the causes underlying their correlation remain unknown. In the present article, five key data sets were reanalyzed according to two criteria: They must consider complex span tasks (so-called working memory [WM] tasks) and simple span tasks (so-called short-term memory [STM] tasks), and they must comprise cognitive ability measures. The obtained results offer several points of interest. First, memory span tasks should be conceived from a hierarchical perspective: They comprise both general and specific components. Second, the general component explains about four times the variance explained by the specific components. Third, STM and WM measures are closely related. Fourth, STM and WM measures share the same common variance with cognitive abilities. Finally, the strong relationship usually found between memory span tasks and cognitive abilities could be tentatively interpreted by the component shared by STM and WM--namely, the capacity for temporarily preserving a reliable memory representation of any given information.     

Age benefits in everyday prospective memory: the influence of personal task importance, use of reminders and everyday stress

The present diary study examined everyday prospective memory tasks in younger and old adults and explored the role of personal task importance, use of reminders and everyday stress as possible correlates of age-related prospective memory performance in everyday life. Results revealed an age benefit in everyday prospective memory tasks. In addition, task importance was identified as a critical moderator of age-related prospective memory performance. More frequent use of reminders and lower levels of stress, however, were associated with better prospective memory performance in general but did not contribute to age-related prospective memory performance. Exploring further possible correlates of prospective memory revealed that the strategy to reprioritize initially planned intentions was associated with age benefits in everyday prospective memory. Results suggest that the age-related benefit observed in experimenter-given tasks transfers to everyday prospective memory and varies in dependence of motivational and cognitive factors. Implications for theoretical models of prospective memory and aging are discussed.     

Individual differences in self-initiated processing at encoding and retrieval: A latent variable analysis

The current study examined individual differences in self-initiated processing (SIP) in memory tasks. Participants performed four memory tasks that varied the amount of SIP required at encoding, retrieval, or both as well as cognitive ability measures. It was found that the correlation between recall performance and cognitive abilities changed as a function of the amount of SIP required. Additionally, it was found that although both free and cued recall measures accounted for variance in cognitive abilities, only the free recall accounted for unique variance in cognitive abilities. It is suggested that the predictive power of a task is determined in part based on the amount of SIP required.     

Individual differences in self-initiated processing at encoding and retrieval: a latent variable analysis

The current study examined individual differences in self-initiated processing (SIP) in memory tasks. Participants performed four memory tasks that varied the amount of SIP required at encoding, retrieval, or both as well as cognitive ability measures. It was found that the correlation between recall performance and cognitive abilities changed as a function of the amount of SIP required. Additionally, it was found that although both free and cued recall measures accounted for variance in cognitive abilities, only the free recall accounted for unique variance in cognitive abilities. It is suggested that the predictive power of a task is determined in part based on the amount of SIP required.     

Pro- and Retrospective Memory in Late Adulthood

Everyday tasks, such as getting groceries en route from work, involve two distinct components, one prospective (i.e., remembering the plan) and the other retrospective (i.e., remembering the grocery list). The present investigation examined the size of the age-related performance declines in these components, as well as the relationship between these components and age-related differences in processing resources. The subjects were 133 community-dwelling adults between 65 and 95 years of age. They completed a large battery of tests, including tests of pro- and retrospective memory as well as tests for indexing processing resources. The results showed similar age-related declines in pro- and retrospective memory. There was only a weak relationship between pro- and retrospective memory, and the age-related decline in processing resources was related more strongly to retro- than prospective memory.     

The involvement of executive functions in prospective memory performance of adults

The present study examines the relationship between prospective memory performance and executive functioning. The four phases of the prospective memory process—intention formation, intention retention, reinstantiation of the intention, and intention execution—are assumed to require different amounts of executive processing, most of which is demanded in the phases of intention formation and intention execution. At present, though, it is still unclear whether, and to what extent, prefrontal executive systems are involved in different kinds of prospective memory tasks, as some findings suggest that prospective memory might rather rely on nonstrategic processes that are unlikely to depend on prefrontal executive systems. Therefore, this study focuses on the following questions: (1) to what degree does executive functioning predict prospective memory performance in different standard prospective memory tasks and, furthermore, are certain executive measures better predictors than others; (2) are age‐related effects in different prospective memory measures due to individual differences in executive functioning; and (3) do age‐related differences in prospective memory exist that are not explained by individual differences in executive functioning. In a sample of 80 adults (20‐80 years), we applied four instruments to measure prospective memory: a traditional single‐task paradigm, two more complex tasks—one time‐based and one event‐based—and a highly complex multi‐task paradigm. We further assessed a broadly defined construct of executive functioning using several standard neuropsychological tests. Results showed that executive functioning did not predict performance in the simple single‐task paradigm. However, executive functioning, but not age, predicted performance in the two more complex standard tests of prospective remembering, and both executive functioning and age predicted performance in the most complex paradigm. In sum, the obtained data underline the assumption that frontal/ executive functions are related to prospective memory performance across a range of prospective paradigms. It also seems clear that age differences in prospective memory performance partially depend on age‐related individual differences in frontal/executive functions.     

Cognitive Procedural Learning in Amnesia

This group study examined the role of residual declarative memory and task-specific cognitive abilities for cognitive procedural learning in amnesia. 20 amnesic patients and 40 control subjects were studied, using four new cognitive tasks, as well as the Tower of Hanoi and a Mirror Reading task. On the cognitive tasks, but not on Mirror Reading, the learning of amnesic patients was significantly impaired relative to controls. Between- and within-group differences in learning were found to be statistically related to cognitive abilities that are involved in the processing of the procedural tasks. In amnesic patients, significant effects of residual declarative memory on learning scores were not observed, but there was indirect evidence for a role of memory in two tasks. The analysis of the correlative relationship between absolute procedural task performances and cognitive abilities indicated a prolonged dependence on nonspecific intellectual abilities in amnesic patients, suggesting a retarded transition to more advanced stages of skill acquisition.     

Contribution of cognitive abilities to performance and improvement on a substitution coding task

Age-related performance variance on substitution coding tests has been found to account for much of the age-related variance in tests of fluid and other abilities, leading to the conclusion that cognitive decline is due to slowing. Although it is an easy task, which could easily be performed accurately given adequate time, the substitution coding task is not a pure measure of cognitive speed. Evidence from growth curve analyses involving 3,708 volunteers (49-95 years of age) from the Manchester and Newcastle Studies of Cognitive Aging (P. Rabbitt, C. Donlan, N. Bent, L. McInnes, & V. Abson, 1993) indicates that, with practice on this task, improvement is related more to memory than to age, reasoning, vocabulary, or perceptual speed. In other words, faster performances are related primarily to memory. Operational similarities between speeded measures and measures of higher order abilities, which weaken the argument for causal relationships, are discussed.     

Everyday cognition: age and intellectual ability correlates

The primary aim of this study was to examine the relationship between a new battery of everyday cognition measures, which assessed 4 cognitive abilities within 3 familiar real-world domains, and traditional psychometric tests of the same basic cognitive abilities. Several theoreticians have argued that everyday cognition measures are somewhat distinct from traditional cognitive assessment approaches, and the authors investigated this assertion correlationally in the present study. The sample consisted of 174 community-dwelling older adults from the Detroit metropolitan area, who had an average age of 73 years. Major results of the study showed that (a) each everyday cognitive test was strongly correlated with the basic cognitive abilities; (b) several basic abilities, as well as measures of domain-specific knowledge, predicted everyday cognitive performance; and (c) everyday and basic measures were similarly related to age. The results suggest that everyday cognition is not unrelated to traditional measures, nor is it less sensitive to age-related differences.     

Executive functioning as a potential mediator of age-related cognitive decline in normal adults

Critical requirements for the hypothesis that executive functioning is a potential mediator of age-related effects on cognitive functioning are that variables assumed to reflect executive functioning represent a distinct construct and that age-related effects on other types of cognitive functioning are reduced when measures of executive functioning are statistically controlled. These issues were investigated in a study involving 261 adults between 18 and 84 years of age. Although age-related effects on various cognitive abilities were substantially reduced after statistical control of the variance in measures hypothesized to represent executive functioning, there was only weak evidence for the existence of distinct constructs corresponding to executive functioning or to aspects of executive control concerned with inhibition, updating, or time sharing.     

Out of sight,out of mind? Relations between visual acuity and cognition

Prior research has established significant relations between measures of sensory ability and cognitive function in adults of different ages, and several explanations for this relation have been proposed. One explanation is that sensory abilities restrict cognitive processing, a second is that cognitive abilities influence assessments of sensory ability, and a third is that both sensory function and cognition are affected by a common, potentially age-based, third factor. These explanations were investigated using mediation and moderation analyses, with near visual acuity as the sensory measure and scores on visual speed tests and auditory memory tests as the cognitive measures. Measures of visual acuity, speed, and memory were obtained from three moderately large samples, two cross-sectional (N?=?380, N?=?4,779) and one longitudinal (N?=?2,258), with participants ranging from 18 to 90 years of age. The visual acuity and cognitive measures had different age trajectories, and the visual acuity–cognition relations were similar in each 5-year age band. The results suggest that the age-related differences and changes in near visual acuity are unlikely to contribute to the age-related differences and changes in speed and memory measures.     

The relationship between speed of information processing and cognitive ability

Speed of information processing as measured by various reaction time and inspection tasks has been shown to correlate with psychometric intelligence, and it has been suggested that general intelligence (g) is determined to some degree by the speed that information is processed. If this is so, then various measures of speed of information processing should correlate substantially with each other, and each should also correlate with a wide range of psychometric tests that load on g. Alternatively, intelligence may be considered to be a multi-faceted complex of partially related abilities with specific abilities being dependent upon specific cognitive processes. If this is the case, it should be possible to discover independent cognitive processes, some of which correlate with one facet or broad ability and some with another. This paper presents three experiments in which the relationship between intellectual ability and four speed of information processing measures was examined. These were rate of memory scanning, rate of retrieval of information from long term memory, speed of stimulus-response mapping and inspection time (IT). Results showed that correlations between IT and most reaction time measures of speed of information processing were low, and that correlations between different versions of IT were negligible. In addition, some cognitive tasks with verbal material (memory scanning rate for digits and Posner letter matching IT) correlated most substantially with Verbal Reasoning whereas non-verbal (two-line) IT consistently correlated with tests loading on g. It was thus suggested that while non-verbal IT may be a measure of a perceptual speed attribute that contributes to mental functioning, other “speed of information processing” parameters may be more specific to a subset of abilities.     

Contents Index Volume 8

In a group of 62 young and 75 older subjects, LISREL models were used to predict ordered list recall from age category, self-reported strategy use and selected cognitive abilities. It was found that: (a) age differences in the strategies of associating and repetition/testing were completely explained by speed of mental processing and associative memory; (b) only these two age-related strategies were efficacious strategies, the one not age-related strategy (concentrating) was not; (c) a large proportion of the age-related variance in list recall performance was mediated by speed and associative memory; and (d) this influence of speed and associative memory on ordered list recall was partly mediated by strategies. These results support a moderate version of the production deficiency explanation of memory aging, in which age differences in efficacious strategy use are explained by age differences in basic cognitive abilities.     

The sensory‐cognition association in adulthood: Different magnitudes for processing speed,inhibition, episodic memory,and false memory?

One hundred and forty-six participants (age range = 20-80) completed a battery of tests designed to measure visual acuity, processing speed, inhibition, episodic memory and false memory. The relations between visual acuity and general cognitive ability, as well as between visual acuity and the indicators of this construct, were evaluated with structural equation modeling. The measurement model confirmed that the indicators of the individual cognitive abilities could be grouped into a general cognitive functioning factor. However, the relation between episodic and false memory was not completely explained by the shared association with this general factor. Furthermore, visual acuity predicted approximately half of the age-related variance in the general cognition factor. Also, the proportion of age-related variance shared with vision was highest in inhibition and lowest in false memory. The results are discussed in the light of common cause accounts of cognitive aging.     

Age-related effects in prospective memory are modulated by ongoing task complexity and relation to target cue

Two experiments examined the puzzling variation in the age-related patterns for event-based prospective memory tasks. Both experiments involved a famous faces ongoing task with a feature of the famous face as the target for the prospective memory task. In Experiment 1, a substantial age deficit was found on the prospective memory task when the cue was nonfocal (wearing glasses) to the ongoing task, replicating previous research, but this deficit was significantly reduced with a focal cue (first name John). In Experiment 2, the prospective memory cue (wearing glasses) was held constant and the demands of the ongoing task of naming faces were varied. The substantial age differences found with a nonfocal cue were eliminated when the ongoing task was made less challenging. The findings help reconcile the divergent age-related findings reported in the literature.     

Efficiency of route selection as a function of adult age

Two tasks hypothesized to assess the efficiency of route selection were administered to 328 adults ranging from 18 to 93 years of age. Increased age was associated with slower completion of mazes, even after adjusting for differences in perceptual-motor speed, and with longer and less accurate routes in a task in which participants were asked to visit designated exhibits in a zoo. The route selection measures were correlated with measures hypothesized to represent executive functioning, such as the number of categories in the Wisconsin card sorting test and the number of words generated in a category fluency test. However, most of the age-related influences on the measures from the route selection tasks were shared with age-related effects on established cognitive abilities, which implies that the same mechanisms may account for the relations of age on both sets of variables.     

Age-cognition relations and the personality trait of Conscientiousness

Increasing age has been found to correlate with a decrease in many cognitive abilities and an increase in the personality trait of Conscientiousness. The first goal of this study was to examine whether an age-related decline in cognitive abilities, in particular Fluid ability, accounts for the age-related increase in Conscientiousness. The second goal was to investigate whether the role of cognitive abilities in the relation between age and Conscientiousness is similar among people of different levels of education.Our results support the conclusion that the relation between age and Conscientiousness is mediated by fluid ability and working memory abilities, and that these effects are stronger in people with lower levels of education.Altogether, these findings are consistent with the hypothesis that age differences in characteristics such as persistence, self-motivation and dutifulness may help compensate for age differences in cognition.