An integrative model of stress management groups for women

This article proposes an integrative model for stress management groups for women, representing a biopsychosocial point of view and drawing on theories of psychodynamic group psychotherapy, self-psychology, female development, and stress management. The basis of the model is an eight week traditional stress management group. The novel aspects of this integrative model are that it aims to increase the power of stress management groups for women by providing an articulated frame, attending to group process, promoting curiosity regarding resistance to behavior changes, encouraging the elaboration of affect, and giving importance to the role of relationships in each member's quest for self care and healthy entitlement.     

Memorizing while walking: increase in dual-task costs from young adulthood to old age

The dual task of memorizing word lists while walking was predicted to become more difficult with age because balance and gait are in greater need of "attentional resources." Forty-seven young (ages 20-30 years), 45 middle-aged (40-50), and 48 old (60-70) adults were trained to criterion in a mnemonic technique and instructed to walk quickly and accurately on 2 narrow tracks of different path complexity. Then. participants encoded the word lists while sitting, standing, or walking on either track; likewise, speed and accuracy of walking performance were assessed with and without concurrent memory encoding. Dual-task costs increased with age in both domains; relative to young adults, the effect size of the overall increase was 0.98 standard deviation units for middle-aged and 1.47 standard deviation units for old adults. It is argued that sensory and motor aspects of behavior are increasingly in need of cognitive control with advancing age.     

The role of inhibition in the regulation of sequential action

We investigated the regulation of sequential action using a new paradigm. Participants learned a sequence of seven stimulus categories and then monitored for them during successive displays. All displays were instances of these categories, presented in pseudorandom order. On each trial, participants monitored for an instance of Category 1, pressed a key on a computer keyboard, then monitored for an instance of Category 2, pressed a key on the keyboard, and so on for all seven categories. Thus, a perfect trial contained exactly seven responses. Intrusion errors were classified as a function of ordinal distance from the current serial position ( n ). Fewer intrusion errors were made at near serial positions than at far ones, suggesting a gradient of lateral inhibition. In addition, more intrusions were made on n + 1 categories than n − 1 categories, suggesting greater availability of intended than completed goals. In accord with current models of sequential action, the results indicate lateral and self-inhibition as important mechanisms in regulation of sequential action.     

Studying individual aging in an interindividual context: typical paths of age-related, dementia-related, and mortality-related cognitive development in old age

This study has 2 objectives: (a) to explore typical paths of cognitive development associated with aging, terminal decline, and dementia and (b) to promote and illustrate an individual-oriented approach to the study of cognitive aging based on longitudinal panel data from a population-based sample (N = 500; age range-sub(T1)= 60-80, where T refers to time) tested at 3 occasions 5 years apart. Results document interindividual differences in multivariate patterns of change. Although cognitive changes generally covary, the present study indicates that subgroups of individuals develop along different paths characterized by selective changes in subsets of cognitive functions. Typical progression of dementia followed a developmental cascade from low declarative memory, via low functioning across all observed cognitive measures, to dementia diagnosis, and finally, death.     

Normal aging increases discriminal dispersion in visuospatial short-term memory

Computational models of cognitive aging propose that age-related decrements in cognitive performance, including short-term memory (STM), result from less distinct stimulus representations. When applied to visual STM, these models predict higher discriminal dispersion (L. L. Thurstone, 1927, Psychophysical analysis, The American Journal of Psychology, 38, 368-389.) in older adults than in younger adults. To test this prediction, we used a change-detection paradigm for visuospatial locations, with different levels of cognitive load (one, three, or five items) and retention interval (100 or 1,000 ms). Adult age differences were not reliable at Load 1, but were substantial at Loads 3 and 5. Effects of retention time did not differ across age groups, suggesting that age-related differences originated mainly from early processing stages. Applying a mixture model to the data revealed age-related increases in discriminal dispersion and decreases in asymptotic discrimination performance (indexing STM capacity). We concluded that age-related declines in discriminal dispersion, in addition to increasing capacity limitations, impair visual STM performance with advancing adult age. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Lifespan differences in nonlinear dynamics during rest and auditory oddball performance

Electroencephalographic recordings (EEG) were used to assess age-associated differences in nonlinear brain dynamics during both rest and auditory oddball performance in children aged 9.0-12.8 years, younger adults, and older adults. We computed nonlinear coupling dynamics and dimensional complexity, and also determined spectral alpha power as an indicator of cortical reactivity. During rest, both nonlinear coupling and spectral alpha power decreased with age, whereas dimensional complexity increased. In contrast, when attending to the deviant stimulus, nonlinear coupling increased with age, and complexity decreased. Correlational analyses showed that nonlinear measures assessed during auditory oddball performance were reliably related to an independently assessed measure of perceptual speed. We conclude that cortical dynamics during rest and stimulus processing undergo substantial reorganization from childhood to old age, and propose that lifespan age differences in nonlinear dynamics during stimulus processing reflect lifespan changes in the functional organization of neuronal cell assemblies.     

Cognition in the Berlin Aging Study (BASE): The First 10 Years

This paper summarizes and expands research on cognitive aging from the Berlin Aging Study (BASE), a longitudinal, multidisciplinary, and population-based investigation of old and very old individuals. First, we describe previously reported research on five key themes: (a) experimental and mortality-associated components of longitudinal selectivity; (b) comparisons between cross-sectional and cross-sectional/longitudinal convergence age gradients; (c) old-age dedifferentiation of inter-individual differences; (d) possible reasons for the age-based increase in the link between intellectual and sensory domains; and (e) limits to cognitive plasticity in very old age. Second, we make use of multilevel modeling to determine the magnitude and direction of retest effects. Retest effects are classified as either flat (step function from the first to the second measurement occasion) or growing (linear increase after the first measurement occasion). Five of the eight longitudinally administered cognitive tests are found to display significant retest effects of either or both types. Retest adjustment increased the linear negative and decreased the quadratic negative component of cross-sectional/longitudinal convergence gradients in measures of intellectual abilities.     

Age differences in executive functioning across the lifespan: the role of verbalization in task preparation

Age-related changes in executive functioning across the lifespan were assessed in children (mean age=9.4 years), younger adults (mean age=21.5 years), and older adults (mean age=65.3 years). Executive functioning was investigated with a task-switching paradigm that permits the separation of two control components: to select and to switch between task sets. The specific aims of this study were (a) to determine developmental functions in both control components across the lifespan; and (b) to examine whether age-related changes in these components are influenced by verbal prompts during task preparation. The results revealed an inverted u-shaped developmental function for the ability to select between task sets but not for the ability to switch between task sets. In contrast to younger adults and children, older adults generally benefited from verbalizations during task preparation. Children, but not older adults, showed a facilitation of task execution when verbal prompts were task-compatible. Conversely, older adults, but not children, showed stronger interference when verbal prompts are task-incompatible. Our findings suggest that inner speech in an important modulator of developmental changes in executive functioning across the lifespan.