Beliefs about age-related changes in physical functioning across the adult life span and their relationship with physical activity levels of older adults

Physical activity declines across the adult life span despite the well-established links between physical activity and health-related, psychological, cognitive, and social benefits. We contrasted the beliefs young and older adults hold about how aging affects both physical abilities and physical activity and determined whether older adults’ beliefs about physical aging relate to their engagement in physical activity. Using visual rating scales, 56 young and 49 community-dwelling older adults indicated the extent to which a typical woman or typical man aged 20–90 possesses six different physical abilities and engages in three different types of physical activity. Stereotypes of physical aging were ability- and activity-specific, and older adults endorsed more positive views than their younger peers. Stereotypical beliefs predicted older adults’ engagement in moderate-intensity activity. This study offers intriguing avenues for future research and suggests that better understanding physical aging stereotypes may contribute toward designing interventions that promote lifelong physical activity.     

Misrecollection prevents older adults from benefitting from semantic relatedness of the memoranda in associative memory

Memory for episodic associations declines in aging, ostensibly due to decreased recollection abilities. Accordingly, associative unitization - the encoding of associated items as one integrated entity - may potentially attenuate age-related associative deficits by enabling familiarity-based retrieval, which is relatively preserved in aging. To test this hypothesis, we induced bottom-up unitization by manipulating semantic relatedness between memoranda. Twenty-four young and 24 older adults studied pairs of object pictures that were either semantically related or unrelated. Participants subsequently discriminated between intact, recombined and new pairs. We found that semantic relatedness increased the contributions of both familiarity and recollection in young adults, but did not improve older adults' performance. Instead, they showed associative deficits, driven by increased recollection-based false recognition. This may reflect a “misrecollection” phenomenon, in which older adults make more false alarms to recombined pairs with particularly high confidence, due to poorer retrieval monitoring regarding semantically-related associative probes.     

Age,criterion flexibility,and item recognition

We examined young and older adults' ability to flexibly adapt response criterion on a recognition test when the probability that a test item had been studied was cued by test color. One word color signaled that the probability of the test item being old was 70% and a second color signaled that the probability of the test item being new was 70%. Young and older adults demonstrated similar levels of criterion shifting in response to color cues. Moreover, although both young and older adults were slowed when test-item color incorrectly predicted test-item status, the extent of slowing did not differ across age group. Putative measures of cognitive control predicted recognition accuracy but not the degree to which criterion changed with test-item color. These results suggest that adaptive criterion shifting does not tax cognitive control or, if it does require effort, may be no more onerous for older than for young adults.     

Age-related differences in affective and cognitive empathy: self-report and performance-based evidence

The correlation between age and empathy is not clear, with prior findings yielding mixed and inconsistent results. Here, we distinguished between two aspects of empathy and respectively investigated the effects of age on the affective and cognitive facets of empathy using a self-report measure (interpersonal reactivity index, IRI) and performance-based tasks (viewing films). The results showed that older adults manifested age-related deficits in both trait and state cognitive empathy, with the latter being positively associated with memory. Otherwise, the overall affective empathy increased in the elderly, but the age-related differences in affective empathy may be qualified by the valence of the film clips. Specifically, older participants showed more empathic concern (EC) and less personal distress (PD) to other people’s emotions than the younger participants for the distress film. Interestingly, for the amusing film, older participants demonstrated more EC and PD. Overall, the two aspects of empathy have different development trajectories.     

Age-related differences in effectiveness of item restudy choices: the role of value

We examined the effect of value on effectiveness of restudy choices in younger and older adults by using an honor or dishonor procedure. In the honor condition, participants restudied the half of the items that they selected for restudy. In the dishonor condition, participants restudied the half of the items that they did not select for restudy. The results showed that younger adults restudied more low-value (1-point) items that they had rated as least-well learned, while older adults restudied more high-value (5-point) items. For younger adults, 1-point-value item performance in the honor condition was reliably higher than it was in the dishonor condition. For older adults, 5-point-value items performance in the honor condition was reliably higher than it was in the dishonor condition. These results suggest that older adults can exert effective restudy choices like younger adults when item value is manipulated.     

Finding the good in the bad: age and event experience relate to the focus on positive aspects of a negative event

All lives contain negative events, but how we think about these events differs across individuals; negative events often include positive details that can be remembered alongside the negative, and the ability to maintain both representations may be beneficial. In a survey examining emotional responses to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, the current study investigated how this ability shifts as a function of age and individual differences in initial experience of the event. Specifically, this study examined how emotional importance (i.e. self-reported emotional arousal and personal significance), involvement (i.e. self and friend/family involvement in the 2013 Boston Marathon and self-involvement in prior marathons), and self-reported surprise upon hearing about the event related to the tendency to report focusing on the negative and positive aspects of the bombings. Structural equation models revealed that while greater emotional importance and surprise were associated with a greater focus on negative elements, involvement and age were associated with increased consideration of positive aspects. Further, emotional importance was more strongly related to an increased focus on negative aspects for young adults and an increased focus on positive aspects for older adults, highlighting a tendency for older adults to enhance positive features of an otherwise highly negative event.     

时间知觉在老年人跨期选择中的作用

随着人口老龄化速度的加快,老年人的跨期选择问题受到越来越多的关注。时间知觉是影响跨期选择的重要因素之一。然而,目前从时间知觉的角度来探讨老年人跨期选择的研究比较有限。本文在总结国内外相关研究的基础之上,试图分析时间知觉的随龄变化如何影响老年人的跨期选择。具体而言,本文从时间长度知觉、时间成本知觉以及时间知觉相关心理动机三个方面进行探讨,并指出了时间知觉视角的局限性及今后的研究方向。     

Using Wellness and Resilience to Predict Age Perception in Older Adulthood

The authors surveyed 210 adults ages 56 to 97 to better understand which variables affect perceptions of aging. A correlational design was used to determine whether wellness and resilience predicted positive age perception and internalized ageism among this group. Both variables were found to significantly predict age perception, and the data supported an interaction effect between age and resilience when predicting internalized ageism. Results may inform counselors, counselor educators, and other professionals who work with older adults.     

语音加工的发展、老化及其神经机制

作为人类语言活动的重要组成成分,语音加工经历着“习得-发展-老化”的变化过程。本文首先综述了婴儿、儿童、成年人及老年人在语音意识、语音提取,语音工作记忆等方面的表现及相应加工机制。其次,分析了不同年龄段个体语音加工发展变化的神经基础。最后,通过比较不同时期个体语音加工发展进程,围绕语音加工发展过程、语音老化有无关键年龄以及如何干预等问题进行展望。