In-Home Cognitive Training with Older Married Couples: Individual Versus Collaborative Learning

ABSTRACT

Research has demonstrated that older adults’ cognitive performance can be enhanced via formal intervention, as well as more informal intervention including collaboration or working with a partner. The current study investigated the effects of an inductive reasoning training program adapted for in-home use among older adults assigned to individual training (n = 30), collaborative training (n = 34), or a no-treatment control group (n = 34). The training consisted of 10 sessions, and all participants completed a pretest followed by a post-test 6 weeks later. Findings suggest that older adults could effectively “train themselves” without the guidance of a formal instructor. The results, however, did not indicate immediate added benefit in reasoning performance for collaborative versus individual training using the current reasoning program.     

Word list memory predicts everyday function and problem-solving in the elderly: results from the ACTIVE cognitive intervention trial

Data from the Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly (ACTIVE) trial (N = 2,802) were analyzed to examine whether word list learning predicts future everyday functioning. Using stepwise random effects modeling, measures from the modified administrations of the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test (HVLT) and the Auditory Verbal Learning Test (AVLT) were independently predictive of everyday IADL functioning, problem-solving, and psychomotor speed. Associations between memory scores and everyday functioning outcomes remained significant across follow-up intervals spanning 5 years. HVLT total recall score was consistently the strongest predictor of each functional outcome. Results suggest that verbal memory measures are uniquely associated with both current and future functioning and that specific verbal memory tests like the HVLT and AVLT have important clinical utility in predicting future functional ability among older adults.     

Different components of working memory have different relationships with different mathematical skills

A comprehensive working memory battery and tests of mathematical skills were administered to 90 children-41 in Year 1 (5-6 years of age) and 49 in Year 3 (7-8 years of age). Working memory could explain statistically significant variance in number writing, magnitude judgment, and single-digit arithmetic, but the different components of working memory had different relationships with the different skills. Visual-spatial sketchpad (VSSP) functioning predicted unique variance in magnitude judgments and number writing. Central executive functioning explained unique variance in the addition accuracy of Year 1 children. The unique variance explained in Year 3 multiplication explained by phonological loop functioning just missed conventional levels of significance (p=.06). The results are consistent with the VSSP having a role in the development of number writing and magnitude judgments but a lesser role in early arithmetic.     

Training the elderly on the ability factors of spatial orientation and inductive reasoning

We examined the effects of cognitive training with elderly participants from the Seattle Longitudinal Study. Subjects were classified as having remained stable or having declined over the previous 14-year interval on each of two primary abilities, spatial orientation and inductive reasoning. Subjects who had declined on one of these abilities received training on that ability; subjects who had declined on both abilities or who had remained stable on both were randomly assigned to the spatial orientation or inductive reasoning training programs. Training outcomes were examined within an ability-measurement framework with empirically determined factorial structure. Significant training effects, at the level of the latent ability constructs, occurred for both spatial orientation and inductive reasoning. These effects were general, in that no significant interactions with decline status or gender were found. Thus, training interventions were effective both in remediating cognitive decline on the target abilities and in improving the performance of stable subjects.     

A portable device for group modification of classroom attending behavior

There is a need for a portable means of signalling appropriate classroom behavior that the teacher can carry with her as she moves about the room. An inexpensive wireless switch, adapted for classroom use, was used to turn on a clock when all children were attending to their work. When a movie was made contingent on accumulating a specific number of minutes on the clock, class-attending increased. Throughout these conditions, the records of class attending made by an independent observer with a stopwatch correlated highly with the remote controlled clock.     

Vocational maturity: Its past,present, and future development

A review and critical analysis of various approaches used in studying vocational maturity revealed that its viability was generally supported, yet remained questionable because of the conflicting results of previous research and the lack of applying these results to counseling. This analysis provided the basis for conceptualizing vocational maturity development as being analogous to and not separate from personality development. Proposed research studies were mentioned which would test basic relationships between vocational maturity development and various aspects of personality development.     

Convergence between attention variables and factors of psychometric intelligence in older adults

The purpose of the present study was to examine the hypothesis that individual differences on measures of attention would converge with select factors of psychometric intelligence, especially fluid intelligence and short-term acquisition and retrieval. A sample of 83 elderly adults $\text{(}\text{X}\text{= 71}\text{years}\text{)}$ was administered a battery of 17 psychometric ability tests. Tests were selected to mark four psychometric ability factors (Cattell and Horn's dimensions of fluid and crystallized intelligence, short-term acquisition and retrieval, and perceptual speed). Also, seven tasks representing four aspects of attention—decoding processes, selective attention, attention switching, and concentration—were administered. A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to examine the relationships among the four psychometric ability factors and 11 variables obtained from the attention tasks. Results were only partially consistent with the hypothesized pattern of convergence. Two attention measures had significant loadings on a fluid-type intelligence factor, and one had a marginally significant loading on a short-term memory factor. In general, the greatest convergence occured between attention variables and the ability factor of Perceptual Speed. Results were discussed with respect to previous research on psychometric abilities and cognitive processes, the theory of fluid-crystallized intelligence, and their implications for understanding intellectual aging.     

The impact of moral theories on cheating

This research series began as a test of an emotion-attribution approach to moral behavior. However, in the early studies, college students who read about morality were subsequently more likely to cheat on a vocabulary test than were control subjects who read materials irrelevant to morality. We hypothesized that resentment toward the test constructors interacted with the moral schemas activated by the reading task. To reduce resentment, in Study III the vocabulary test was presented as the experimenter's doctoral research. As predicted, compared to controls, those subjects who read about morality cheated less. Study IV was a quasi-experiment that confirmed the hypothesized resentment differences between Study III and the earlier studies. In Study V, while two groups read about morality, one group read an internal emotion-attribution passage and the other read an external version; less cheating was observed in the internal condition than in the external or control conditions. The results indicate that even when moral schemas are elicited under conditions favoring moral behavior, those schemas will lead to reduced cheating most effectively under conditions in which subjects attribute their emotional arousal to their own behavior rather than to external causes. Issues of moral schema activation and emotion-attribution in moral behavior are discussed.