Disorders of Eating in the Elderly

The most common eating disorder in the elderly in both community and hospital settings is food refusal. This may lead to weight loss and malnutrition with all the adverse consequences on independence and function. The management of disorders of eating in the elderly is a diagnostic and therapeutic challenge, requiring the combined skills of the medical and nursing staff. The causes are often multifactorial and require careful and repeated assessment of the patient's social, psychological, and medical history. Approach to treatment involves these factors, as well as ethical and cultural considerations. Eating is the most basic biological drive for survival in nature. In human societies there are additional cultural and social aspects that may override this instinct, as in the case of hunger strikes for political motives. In the elderly, food is one of the major sources of possible pleasure and it is the challenge for health providers to try and give this enjoyment to their patients for as long as possible.     

Hippocampal Theta Oscillations and Classical Conditioning

Studies are reviewed that support a hypothesized role for hippocampal theta oscillations in the neural plasticity underlying behavioral learning. Begun in Richard F. Thompson's laboratory in the 1970s, these experiments have documented a relationship between free-running 3- to 7-Hz hippocampal slow waves (theta) and rates of acquisition in rabbit classical nictitating membrane (NM) conditioning. Lesion and drug manipulations of septohippocampal projections have affected NM and jaw movement conditioning in ways consistent with a theta-related brain state being an important modulator of behavioral acquisition. These findings provide essential empirical support for the recently developed neurobiological and computational models that posit an important role for rhythmic oscillations (such as theta) in cellular plasticity and behavioral learning.     

The combination of explicit and implicit learning processes in task control

Summary Two experiments look at the combination of explicit and implicit learning processes on a single task. Subjects are required to control the rate of sugar output in a small sugar production factory while maintaining cordial relations with the union. Experiment 1 investigates whether subjects can learn to control this task, which relies on their knowing about both salient and nonsalient relationships. It looks at how performance on the task relates to explicit verbalisable knowledge (as assessed by written questionnaire). Experiment 2 considers alternative ways of tapping the more implicit aspects of subjects' knowledge.     

Semantics of Ownership: A Free-Recall Study of Property

Adult Canadians (N = 120) evaluated criteria of ownership by two tasks. The first was listing exemplars of things owned and things not owned and then rating applicability of criteria to exemplars. The second was judging the strength of criteria as general arguments for ownership. Cluster analysis suggested that free-recall exemplars of property were selected by four principal types of criteria: (a) control criteria (POSSESSION, ASSERTION, TERRITORIALITY) referring to the regulation of social access to the property, (b) attachment criteria (FAMILIARITY, KNOWLEDGE, AESTHETICS, UTILITY) expressing the psychological proximity of the owner to the property, (c) consumer criteria (PURCHASE, HISTORY, DESIRE) reflecting important purchases, and (d) special-acquisitions criteria (GIFT, CRAFTING). By the judgement task, only means-of-acquisition criteria (PURCHASE, CRAFTING, GIFT) were valued as strong arguments for ownership.

     

Relinquishment of control and the type A behavior pattern: the role of performance evaluation

We investigated the role of information processing in the control relinquishment decisions of Type As and Bs. Pairs of subjects worked independently on a task and received feedback indicating that their partner had performed at a comparable or superior level. On a second task, subjects combined their efforts and made decisions concerning who would work on different parts of that task. One third of the subjects made this decision before completing an evaluation of the initial performances. Another third completed the evaluation without knowing that they would subsequently make a control decision. The final third of the subjects completed their evaluations knowing that a control decision would follow. Results indicated that when the evaluations were completed last, or when the evaluations were completed first but without knowledge of the impending decision, Type As relinquished less control to a superior partner than did Type Bs. When the evaluations were completed with knowledge of an impending control decision, Type As and Bs did not differ in their decisions. These results suggest that under certain conditions, Type As use an automatic or mindless decision style with potentially maladaptive consequences.     

TOWARDS A UNIVERSAL PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITIVE COMPETENCE

A position of cultural relativism is outlined and employed in an examination of variations in folk conceptions and psychologists' conceptions of cognitive competence in a variety of cultures. At the same time it is proposed that pan-cultural characteristics of cognitive competence must also be sought. A framework for exploring both the local and the universal features of cognitive functioning is presented as a guide for future research, and as a test of current formulations.     

On the relationship between task performance and associated verbalizable knowledge

Three experiments explore the relationship between performance on a cognitive task and the explicit or reportable knowledge associated with that performance (assessed here by written post-task questionnaire). They examine how this relationship is affected by task experience, verbal instruction and concurrent verbalization. It is shown that practice significantly improves ability to control semi-complex computer-implemented systems but has no effect on the ability to answer related questions. In contrast, verbal instruction significantly improves ability to answer questions but has no effect on control performance. Verbal instruction combined with concurrent verbalization does lead to a significant improvement in control scores. Verbalization alone, however, has no effect on task performance or question answering.     

Cree Conceptions of Cognitive Competence

The study of cognitive competence in various cultures has shifted from examining “general intelligence” (very often only in terms known to Western cultures), to a concern for indigenous conceptions of what it means to be a capable person in that culture. Ethnographic techniques elicited the range of Cree terms for such general competence. With a sample of 60 Cree adults in Northern Ontario (stratified by age and sex), we obtained card sorts for 20 terms (piles sorted on basis of similarity), and semantic differential ratings (on 12 bipolar adjective dimensions), for two of the terms. A two-dimensional solution was obtained using Multidimensional scaling. On one dimension there was a cluster of core terms (e.g. wise, thinks hard, pays attention, respectful, good sense of direction) at one end, and three other terms (stupid, crazy, “backwards knowledge”) at the other. On the second dimension, a pair of terms translated as “mentally tough” (with implications of perseverance, stamina, bravery) was at one end, and two other terms (understands new things, religious) were at the other. The term for “lives like a white person” was opposite the core cluster of terms for Cree competence. Ratings of the two terms (“wise” and “understands new things”), indicate that both are associated with: Taking time, good, hard-working, careful, patient, self-sufficient, strong, developing, bush-related, and easy to see. These results indicate some clear differences from Western notions of intelligence as being fast, analytic and without social or moral dimensions.     

Groups as social network members: Overlooked sources of social support

In a study of the link between physical disability and social relationships among the elderly, questions about social network and social support evoked a surprisingly large number of group responses. People mentioned "my grandchildren," "the people in my building," "people at the senior center," and other groups in ways that suggested that the real unit of support was extraindividual and could not be accurately understood by reference to individual people within those groups. This paper describes the frequency of such responses and the circumstances under which they emerged. Definitions of social support and of social network should not be restricted to dyadic relationships between individuals; better understanding of social support processes would derive from consideration of the kinds of social support functions best offered by groups vs. individuals and consideration of differences in the ways in which support is derived from groups and individuals.