Depression at 3 Months Poststroke in the Elderly: Predictors and Indicators of Prevalence

The prevalence and determinants of depression in 79 elderly patients were assessed at 3 months poststroke. Predictor variables included gender, age, history of previous stroke, and hemispheric location of stroke. Indicator variables included two measures of physical functioning and seven aspects of cognitive functioning. Results indicated that 56% of patients had impairment in activities of daily living, and 39% reported clinically significant levels of depression. Prevalence of cognitive impairment ranged from 31% on a measure of basic cognitive functioning, through to 89% on a measure of complex attention. The results from a hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed that the combination of predictor and indicator variables explained 53% of the variance in depression scores. The three individual variables of history of previous stroke, physical functioning, and simple attention all made significant unique contributions to the variance in depression scores. The contribution of these findings to the ongoing debate concerning lesion location and poststroke depression is discussed.     

Does prospective memory influence quality of life in community-dwelling older adults?

Older adults commonly experience declines in prospective memory, which describes one’s ability to “remember to remember,” and can adversely affect instrumental activities of daily living and healthcare compliance. However, the extent to which prospective memory failures may influence quality of life in typically aging older adults is not well understood. One-hundred and four community-dwelling older Australians (aged 50 to 82 years) were administered a comprehensive, neuropsychological battery that included the Memory for Intentions Screening Test (MIST), Prospective and Retrospective Memory Questionnaire (PRMQ), Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Questionnaire (IADLQ), and World Health Organization Quality of Life-8 (WHOQOL-8). Multiple regressions controlling for negative affect, medical comorbidities, and other neurocognitive functions revealed an interaction between prospective memory and instrumental activities of daily living in the concurrent prediction of quality of life. Among the 39 older adults who reported multiple problems on the IADLQ, lower performance-based prospective memory (MIST) and higher self-reported prospective memory failures in daily life (PRMQ) were significantly associated with lower quality of life (WHOQOL-8). Conversely, no significant associations were observed between prospective memory and quality of life in the 65 participants without IADL problems. Prospective memory difficulties adversely impact quality of life in community-dwelling older adults who experience problems independently managing their instrumental activities of daily living. These findings extend prior literature showing that prospective memory plays a unique role in the real-world outcomes of older adults and clinical populations and highlight the need to develop effective strategies to enhance prospective memory functioning in these vulnerable groups.     

Color Vision in Alzheimer’s Patients: Can We Improve Object Recognition With Color Cues?

Sixty-three frail, elderly patients seen in a university-based outpatient geriatric assessment clinic were divided into three dementia diagnosis categories (Alzheimer’s disease, “other” dementias, cognitively intact) to investigate the use of color cues as memory aids. Recognition time was measured for three cues: (1) same color/different form; (2) same form/different color; and (3) different color/different form. Log transformed response times were longer for form cues (same color/different form) compared to color cues (different color/same form, p =.001; different color/different form, p <.001). No differences in log transformed response time were noted among dementia categories for each test condition. Color cues make a significant difference in short-term memory recall ability compared to form cues. Vivid color-coding the environment of a frail, elderly population may enhance short-term memory and improve functional ability. This may prove to be especially useful in long-term care settings, which provide services to a variety of people with differing cognitive abilities.     

Imagination, language, and the perceptual world: a post-analytic phenomenology

This paper seeks to integrate analytic philosophy and phenomenology. It does so through an approach generated, specifically, in relation to imagination and its cognitive significance. As an Introduction, some reservations about existing phenomenological approaches to imagination—in the work of Sartre and Edward S. Casey—are considered. It is argued that their introspective psychological approach needs to be qualified through a more analytic orientation that determines essence, initially, on the basis of public discourse concerning the term ‘imagination.’ Part One then articulates this orientation through an ‘analytic reduction’ that identifies imagination’s essence in public discourse as thought in its quasi-sensory mode. Part Two offers a sustained phenomenological investigation of this essence, and identifies four major intrinsic features. On the basis of this, Part Three shows how imagination is implicated, centrally, in the capacity to acquire language. In Conclusion the proceeding arguments are defended against possible objections, and a final key summarizing argument is formulated to show that imagination must be regarded, also, as necessary to perception and its capacity to articulate a world. The paper ends with a few thoughts on the further potential of post-analytic phenomenology.     

Inhibition of return can be associated with object identity but not with object category

In this study, pre-schoolers and a comparison sample of fifth graders and high school students were presented with prediction tasks that varied by content of the base rate information (perceptual vs semantic) either presented alone (simple task) or accompanied by individuating data (complex task). Base rate choices, confidence scores, and explanations of the choices were registered. It is assumed that the presence of content effects in the processing of the base rates is in favour of a mental model account. Results indicated that pre-schoolers are able to build one-dimensional models with perceptual base rates in simple tasks. Fifth graders and high school students are able to build one-dimensional models with both types of content in simple tasks, as well as two-dimensional models in complex tasks. There is a local facilitation effect of semantic contents for fifth graders that disappears for high-school students. Consistency between subjects' choices, confidence scores and rationales depends on the subjects' grade, the number of sources involved, and the base rate content. Developmental trends are discussed in the light of previous research within formal, heuristic, and mental model approaches.     

Reasons for the growth of traditional memory span across age

Three studies, covering together the age range from 3 to 16 years, show the relationships between age, short-term memory span, and language abilities. The growth of the traditional memory span in childhood is systematically related to a concomitant growth of language abilities as tested with CELF-3 Screening, two tests of word knowledge, a test of reception of grammar (TROG-2), and the British Picture Vocabulary Test (BPVS). Linear regression and ANCOVA analyses show that the growth of memory span is fully explained by the growth of language abilities in the three studies that covered different subsamples of children. In a confirmatory factor analysis a two-factor model fits the data well and shows that a “crystallised” language factor is strongly related to age, whereas a “fluid” short-term memory factor is unrelated to age. The two-factor model gives support to Baddeley's multicomponent model of working memory, and the current data suggest that the capacity of the phonological store is fully developed in children younger than 4 years old. The authors hold that chunking capacity, highly dependent on language abilities, is a major source of memory span growth with age. Rather than an increase in the number of chunks, or episodes retained in short-term memory (=chunk span), it is argued that childhood memory span development reflects an increase in the size of each chunk (=chunking capacity).     

The amygdala but not the hippocampus is involved in pattern separation based on reward value

A total of 32 male Long-Evans rats were tested on a modified version of Flaherty, Turovsky, and Krauss's (1994) anticipatory contrast paradigm to assess pattern separation for reward value. Prior to testing, each rat received either a control, a hippocampal, or an amygdala lesion. In the home cage, each rat was allowed to drink a water solution containing 2% sucrose for 3 min followed by a water solution containing 32% sucrose for 3 min. Across 10 days of testing, the rats in each lesion group showed significantly increased anticipatory discriminability as a function of days. To assess the operation of a pattern separation mechanism, each rat was then tested using the same procedure except the 2% solution was followed by a 16% solution for 10 days and then by an 8% solution for 10 days. Control and hippocampal-lesioned rats continued to show high discriminability when the 2% solution was followed by a 16% solution; however, the amygdala-lesioned rats showed low anticipatory discriminability. On trials where the 2% sucrose solution was followed by an 8% sucrose solution, all groups showed low discriminability scores, suggesting that when two reward values are very similar even control animals are not able to separate the reward values in memory. However, the results of a preference task revealed that all groups can perceptually discriminate between a 2% and an 8% sucrose solution. The data suggest that the amygdala but not the hippocampus is involved in the separation of patterns based on reward value.     

Attempting to model dissociations of memory

Kinder and Shanks report simulations aimed at describing a single-system model of the dissociation between declarative and non-declarative memory. This model attempts to capture both Artificial Grammar Learning (AGL) and recognition memory with a single underlying representation. However, the model fails to reflect an essential feature of recognition memory - that it occurs after a single exposure - and the simulations may instead describe a potentially interesting property of over-training non-declarative memory.     

Development Through Work and Play

Adopting a work-play framework that attends to the adaptive, self-enhancing potential of play in work and human development contributes to an enhanced conceptualization of careers, both within career theory generally and the developmental perspective on careers specifically. Such a framework also promotes investigations of the connections between these life domains. Five proposals are made to imbue the developmental perspective on careers with a work-play fusion. These proposals examine how a work-play integration in vocational development theory, research, and counseling practice can foster optimal human development and therein aim to advance a revitalized developmental paradigm of career. Ultimately, theory construction and research inquiry that comprehends and investigates an integration of life roles in the domains of work and play could foster adaptability in human life-span development.