Age differences in perceptions of memory strategy effectiveness for recent and remote memory

We examined whether young and older adults hold different beliefs about the effectiveness of memory strategies for specific types of memory tasks and whether memory strategies are perceived to be differentially effective for young, middle-aged, and older targets. Participants rated the effectiveness of five memory strategies for 10 memory tasks at three target ages (20, 50, and 80 years old). Older adults did not strongly differentiate strategy effectiveness, viewing most strategies as similarly effective across memory tasks. Young adults held strategy-specific beliefs, endorsing external aids and physical health as more effective than a positive attitude or internal strategies, without substantial differentiation based on task. We also found differences in anticipated strategy effectiveness for targets of different ages. Older adults described cognitive and physical health strategies as more effective for older than middle-aged targets, whereas young adults expected these strategies to be equally effective for middle-aged and older target adults.     

A computer-graphic technique for the study of body size perception and body types

We present a novel approach for measuring body size estimation in normal and eating-disordered women and men. Clinical categories of body types were used as prototypes. By comparing the subjective appearance of a person’s body with prototypes, we can understand how different attributes of his or her body shape contribute to perception of body size. After lifelike random distortions have been applied to parts of their body image, individuals adjust their body shapes until they converge on their perceived veridical appearance. Exaggeration and minimization of particular body areas measured with respect to their true shape and with different prototypes can be expressed as numerical deviations. In this way, perceived body size and body attractiveness can be appraised during the course of diagnosis and treatment of eating disorders.     

Brilliant but cruel: Perceptions of negative evaluators

Using edited excerpts from actual negative and positive book reviews, this research examined the hypothesis that negative evaluators of intellectual products will be perceived as more intelligent than positive evaluators. The results strongly supported the hypothesis. Negative reviewers were perceived as more intelligent, competent, and expert than positive reviewers, even when the content of the positive review was independently judged as being of higher quality and greater forcefulness. At the same time, in accord with previous research, negative reviewers were perceived as significantly less likable than positive reviewers. The results on intelligence ratings are seen as bolstering the self-presentational explanation of the tendency shown by intellectually insecure individuals to be negatively critical. The present methodology is contrasted to that of previous research which obtained apparently contradictory results.     

Not all executive functions are related to intelligence

Accumulating evidence suggests that executive functions (EFs) are related to intelligence, despite neuropsychological results initially considered evidence of no such relation. However, findings that EFs are not unitary raise the issue of how intelligence relates to different EFs. This study examined the relations of fluid and crystallized intelligence and Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale IQ to three separable EFs--inhibiting prepotent responses (inhibiting), shifting mental sets (shifting), and updating working memory (updating)--in young adults. Updating was highly correlated with the intelligence measures, but inhibiting and shifting were not. Furthermore, in structural equation models controlling for the inter-EF correlations, updating remained strongly related to intelligence, but the relations of inhibiting and shifting to intelligence were small and not significant. The results indicate that intelligence measures differentially relate to these three EFs, suggesting that current intelligence measures do not equally assess a wide range of executive control abilities likely required for many "intelligent" behaviors.     

Quality of Family and Work Roles and Its Relationship with Health Indicators in Men and Women

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate whether the perceived qualities of work-related, marital, and parenting roles differentially predict distress symptoms, cardiovascular risk, anxiety, depression, and self-esteem. Also, I sought to evaluate whether there are interactions among the quality of different roles (work, marital, and parenting) and whether there are differences between men and women. Participants were 340 women (ages 30–55 years) and 279 men (ages 21–66 years) who lived and worked in Bogotá, Colombia. The questionnaire included valid self-report scales, and questions of specific interest for this study. Results indicate that the perceived quality of the roles differentially predicts the health indicators studied. Psychological health indicators are more strongly predicted than the cardiovascular health indicators by role quality. Self-esteem and anxiety in men and depression in women are more strongly predicted by the perceived quality of the roles. There were differences as well as similarities between genders.     

A lifespan database of adult facial stimuli.

Faces constitute a unique and widely used category of stimuli. In spite of their importance, there are few collections of faces for use in research, none of which adequately represent the different ages of faces across the lifespan. This lack of a range of ages has limited the majority of researchers to using predominantly young faces as stimuli even when their hypotheses concern both young and old participants. We describe a database of 575 individual faces ranging from ages 18 to 93. Our database was developed to be more representative of age groups across the lifespan, with a special emphasis on recruiting older adults. The resulting database has faces of 218 adults age 18-29, 76 adults age 30-49, 123 adults age 50-69, and 158 adults age 70 and older. These faces may be acquired for research purposes from http://agingmind.cns.uiuc.edu/facedb/. This will allow researchers interested in using facial stimuli access to a wider age range of adult faces than has previously been available.     

Young and older adults' beliefs about effective ways to mitigate age-related memory decline

This study investigated whether young and older adults vary in their beliefs about the impact of various mitigating factors on age-related memory decline. Eighty young (ages 18-23) and 80 older (ages 60-82) participants reported their beliefs about their own memory abilities and the strategies that they use in their everyday lives to attempt to control their memory. Participants also reported their beliefs about memory change with age for hypothetical target individuals who were described as using (or not using) various means to mitigate memory decline. There were no age differences in personal beliefs about control over current or future memory ability. However, the two age groups differed in the types of strategies they used in their everyday life to control their memory. Young adults were more likely to use internal memory strategies, whereas older adults were more likely to focus on cognitive exercise and maintaining physical health as ways to optimize their memory ability. There were no age differences in rated memory change across the life span in hypothetical individuals. Both young and older adults perceived strategies related to improving physical and cognitive health as effective means of mitigating memory loss with age, whereas internal memory strategies were perceived as less effective means for controlling age-related memory decline.     

Independent age cues for infancy and older age in one face: evidence for rivalry in age perception

Participants estimated the ages of infants, teens, and adults in their 20s and 60s, using averaged facial images, as well as digitally transformed images of two different age groups. Since a blended face has intermediate features of the component faces, age of the combined faces was hypothesized to be perceived as the mean age of the component faces. However, the perceived age was underestimated when the transformed face included an infant, but overestimated when the face included a person in their 60s. From this one may infer the faces of infants and adults in their 60s have strong age cues. The estimated ages for blended images of infants and adults in their 60s showed a clear bipolar distribution, with one peak at 5-9 years and the other at 50-54 years. Analysis of individual variation showed that the different response to infants-60s faces was related to variations in sensitivity to 60s faces, not to a general perceptual tendency or confused responses to ambiguous appearing faces. Thus, cues for infancy and older age are qualitatively independent and can co-exist in one face, yielding a rivalry in age perception.     

Wrinkling and head shape as coordinated sources of age-level information

Changes in the shape of a human head and the development of facial wrinkles were examined as potential sources of information about age level. In Experiment 1, subjects estimated the ages of faces that had been produced by systematically manipulating characteristic head shapes and levels of wrinkles associated with ages 15, 30, 50, and 70 years. The results indicated that observers used both sources of craniofacial change in making age estimates; but the effect of either source of change on perceived age depended upon the level of the other source of change. In Experiment 2, subjects’ ratings of the apparent conflict between levels of head shape and wrinkles further substantiated the conclusion that observers are sensitive to the coordination of products of the two sources of change. These findings suggest that the information specifying perceived age level is a complexrelationship among different types of craniofacial change.     

A lifespan database of adult facial stimuli

Faces constitute a unique and widely used category of stimuli. In spite of their importance, there are few collections of faces for use in research, none of which adequately represent the different ages of faces across the lifespan. This lack of a range of ages has limited the majority of researchers to using predominantly young faces as stimuli even when their hypotheses concern both young and old participants. We describe a database of 575 individual faces ranging from ages 18 to 93. Our database was developed to be more representative of age groups across the lifespan, with a special emphasis on recruiting older adults. The resulting database has faces of 218 adults age 18–29, 76 adults age 30–49, 123 adults age 50–69, and 158 adults age 70 and older. These faces may be acquired for research purposes fromhttp://agingmind.cns.uiuc.edu/facedb/. This will allow researchers interested in using facial stimuli access to a wider age range of adult faces than has previously been available.     

The boundaries of reciprocal cooperation

The current research examines the role of social value orientation in determining the extent to which individuals are inclined to reciprocate cooperation exhibited by others perceived as either honest, intelligent, or unintelligent. Results revealed that individuals with prosocial orientation reciprocated high levels of cooperation regardless of other's characteristics. Individuals with proself orientation (i.e. individualists and competitors) exhibited some reciprocal cooperation toward others perceived as honest, yet took advantage of others perceived as intelligent or unintelligent. These results suggest that proselfs can be motivated to reciprocate cooperation by others if they have faith in others' benign intentions and trustworthiness. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cognitive and non-cognitive factors contributing to the longitudinal identification of successful older adults in the betula study

Studies of successful aging have typically defined elderly who fall in the upper end of a distribution of test scores as successful. A different definition of successful aging requires that older adults fall at or above the mean level of younger adults and maintain this level over time. Here we examined this definition of successful aging in a sample of 1463 individuals between the ages of 50 of 85. Based on principal coordinate analysis of cognitive and non-cognitive variables, we identified a group of 55 (8.3%) 70-85 years olds that were high functioning. This group of elderly showed elevated performance on a range of cognitive tasks. Non-cognitive factors that characterized this group included education and subjective health. The participants were retested 5 years later and the same type of analysis was repeated. Of the remaining individuals who initially were classified as high functioning, 18 (35%) remained high functioning and thus met the definition for successful aging. Years of education was a significant predictor of who remained successful over time.     

Effort as Person-Focused Praise: “Hard Worker” Has Negative Effects for Adults After a Failure

Although work with children demonstrates a benefit of process-focused praise relative to person-focused praise on post-failure motivation, few studies have examined this result in adults. We tested the effect of three types of praise on adults' post-failure outcomes: person-focused intelligence (“high intelligence”), person-focused effort (“hard worker”), and process-focused effort (“worked hard”) in a sample of 156 adults recruited from Amazon's MTurk. Participants completed a set of easy visual pattern recognition problems and were told that they performed better than most adults and were given one of the three types of feedback. They then completed more difficult problems and were told that they had not performed well. Participants in the “hard worker” condition (compared to “worked hard”) were more likely to endorse intelligence as a reason for failure. They also reported lower perceived success and less enjoyment than participants in other conditions. Participants in the “high intelligence” condition were more likely to attribute their failure to intelligence than participants in the “worked hard” condition. The results suggest that the benefit of process-focused praise typically found in children (worked hard compared to intelligent) was mostly not replicated in adults, and person-focused effort praise was detrimental in a non-college student adult sample.     

Young adults' caregiving and the age level of a potential recipient

The hypothesis that two caregiving tendencies are affected by the age of potential recipients was investigated in two experiments. In Experiment 1, two matched groups of 40 young adults selected from 16 pairs of either facial profile drawings or age-labels (e.g., "2-year-old") those individuals that they would feel most compelled to protect (i.e., the most "defense-provoking" in each pair). Both groups tended to select younger and more elderly individuals over more middle-aged ones. In Experiment 2, two more matched groups of 40 adults rated the defense-provokingness or the cuddliness of a series of facial profile drawings showing a male at eight ages, from newborn to 70 years old. Although rated cuddliness decreased as portrayed age increased from age 6 months onward, rated defense-provokingness decreased with age from birth to 35 years, but increased thereafter. These results are generally consistent with the expectation that adults' tendency to protect or cuddle others varies in accordance with the typical neediness of individuals of different age levels for these forms of care.     

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.     

Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Factors Contributing to the Longitudinal Identification of Successful Older Adults in the Betula Study

ABSTRACT

Studies of successful aging have typically defined elderly who fall in the upper end of a distribution of test scores as successful. A different definition of successful aging requires that older adults fall at or above the mean level of younger adults and maintain this level over time. Here we examined this definition of successful aging in a sample of 1463 individuals between the ages of 50 of 85. Based on principal coordinate analysis of cognitive and non-cognitive variables, we identified a group of 55 (8.3%) 70–85 years olds that were high functioning. This group of elderly showed elevated performance on a range of cognitive tasks. Non-cognitive factors that characterized this group included education and subjective health. The participants were retested 5 years later and the same type of analysis was repeated. Of the remaining individuals who initially were classified as high functioning, 18 (35%) remained high functioning and thus met the definition for successful aging. Years of education was a significant predictor of who remained successful over time.     

Late‐ but not early‐onset blindness impairs the development of audio‐haptic multisensory integration

Integrating different senses to reduce sensory uncertainty and increase perceptual precision can have an important compensatory function for individuals with visual impairment and blindness. However, how visual impairment and blindness impact the development of optimal multisensory integration in the remaining senses is currently unknown. Here we first examined how audio‐haptic integration develops and changes across the life span in 92 sighted (blindfolded) individuals between 7 and 70 years of age. We used a child‐friendly task in which participants had to discriminate different object sizes by touching them and/or listening to them. We assessed whether audio‐haptic performance resulted in a reduction of perceptual uncertainty compared to auditory‐only and haptic‐only performance as predicted by maximum‐likelihood estimation model. We then compared how this ability develops in 28 children and adults with different levels of visual experience, focussing on low‐vision individuals and blind individuals that lost their sight at different ages during development. Our results show that in sighted individuals, adult‐like audio‐haptic integration develops around 13–15 years of age, and remains stable until late adulthood. While early‐blind individuals, even at the youngest ages, integrate audio‐haptic information in an optimal fashion, late‐blind individuals do not. Optimal integration in low‐vision individuals follows a similar developmental trajectory as that of sighted individuals. These findings demonstrate that visual experience is not necessary for optimal audio‐haptic integration to emerge, but that consistency of sensory information across development is key for the functional outcome of optimal multisensory integration.     

Correlates of adult and child perceptions of social competency

In this study, the relationship between two commonly used measures of social competency, peer ratings of perceived status and adult ratings of assertiveness, were examined. In Phase I, high and low sociometric status children were videotaped responding to a series of role-play scenes; performance on these scenes was then rated retrospectively by adults for overall assertiveness. In Phase II, a second group of children who were unfamiliar with the videotaped children observed the taped scenes and provided ratings of likability, intelligence, working together, and attractiveness. In general, results revealed that children and adults differed in their ratings of the videotaped children. Further, boys used different cues in their ratings than did girls. More specifically, the sociometric status of girls was related to perceived attractiveness, whereas the sociometric status of boys was more closely related to perceived intelligence. Such findings suggest that children and adults look for and use different cues in their judgments. Given these differences, it is concluded that child and adult ratings should not be used interchangeably in the assessment of, and evaluation of, social competency in children.Portions of this research were supported by a grant from the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services.     

Age and health care beliefs: self-efficacy as a mediator of low desire for control

The relation between individuals' age, desire for control, information, and perceived self-efficacy was examined using a cross-sectional comparison of 116 noninstitutionalized adults, ages 20 to 99. We found that individuals over 60 years of age desired less health-related control than did younger adults, and preferred that health professionals make decisions for them. Differences in desire for health-related information were in the same direction but were not significant. Older adults also desired less control in general day-to-day living. Perceived self-efficacy was also lower for individuals over 60 years of age. Results suggested that perceived self-efficacy mediated the age differences in health-related desire for control. Mediation of general desire for control, however, was not strong. Cohort and developmental explanations are provided for these findings. It is suggested that those individuals most at risk for chronic illnesses and hospitalization are also those who are most likely to fail to take an active role in their health care.     

Subjective Change and Its Consequences for Emotional Well-Being

This study investigates the impact of subjective changes in the execution of the roles of spouse, worker, and parent on the level and structure of positive and negative affect. According to the self-theory of subjective change, perceived improvement and decline are unsettling because each violate standards of self-conception, but perceived stability satisfies the organismic desire for homeostasis. Therefore individuals who perceive more changes in themselves should report more negative and less positive affect, compared with individuals who feel they have remained the same. The context-dependence theory of affects also argues that the correlation of negative and positive affect is strong when individuals are distressed and modest when they are in homeostasis. Thus, the correlation of positive and negative should approach unity as individuals perceive more change in themselves. Data are from the MIDUS study and sample (N = 3,032) of adults between the ages of 25 and 74. Respondents completed scales of positive and negative affect, and evaluated their current and past (10 years ago) functioning as spouses (or close relationship), in work, and as parents (relationship with their children). The correlation of positive and negative affect approached unity at the highest levels of perceived improvement, r = –.93, and at the highest levels of perceived decline, r = –.90, but was modestly correlated at no change, r = –.52. Moreover, the level of positive affect was lower, and negative affect was higher, among adults who perceived more improvement as well as declines, compared with adults who remained the same. Implications for the study of objective life events as well as health interventions are discussed.an affiliated program of Emory University