Psych of Aging Exam 2

Competence

limit of a person’s ability to function with physical health, sensory-perceptual skills, motor skills, cognitive strength, and ego strength

Environmental Press

physical, interpersonal, social demands that environments put on people

Adaptation Level

press level is average for a particular level of competence

Zone of Maximum Performance Potential

slight increases in press improve performance

Zone of Maximum Comfort

slight decreases in press where people can live happily without worrying about environmental demands

Proactivity

choosing new behaviors to meet new desires or needs and exert control over their lives

Docility

people allow the situation to dictate the options they have and have little control

Preventive Adaptations

actions that avoid stressors and increase social resources

Corrective Adaptations

actions taken in response to sressors and can be facilitated by internal and external resources

Adult Day Care

provide support, companionship, and services during the day

Assisted Living

supportive living arrangement for people needing assistance with personal care but no 24 hour care

Sense of Place

emotional bonds an older adult forms with a physical location

Resilience

behaviors, thoughts, and actions that promote personal well being and mental health

assessing situations and establishing coping responses

Infantilization

unwarranted use of a person’s first name, terms of endearment, simplified expressions, short imperatives, assuming bad memory, cajoling

Age Friendly Community

physical and social environment designed to support active, healthy aging allowing older adults to stay independent, safe, and engaged

Accessibility

designing environments and products so that older adults can use them independently and safely

Adaptability

changes that can be made quickly to accomodate the needs of people with physical challenges without having to completely redesign the home or use different materials for essential fixtures

Sensory Memory

brief representation of stimuli that exists in the observable environment

Speed of Processing

how quickly and efficiently the early steps in information processing are completed

Processing Resources

amount of attention one has to apply to a particular situation

Inhibitory Loss

difficulty inhibiting the process of irrelevant information

Divided Attention

how well people perform multiple tasks simultaneously

Automatic Processing

places minimal demands on attentional capacity and gets information into the system largely without us being aware of it

Effortful Processing

requires all of the available attentional capacity, deliberate memory, declines with age

Encoding

the process of getting information into the memory system

Retrevial

getting information back out of memory

Working Memory

active processes and structures involved in holding information in mind and simultaneously using that information (along with incoming information) to solve a problem, make a decision, or learn new information

Rehearsal

how information is held in working memory, either by repeating information over and over or making meaningful connections between the information in working memory and information already known

Implicit Memory (procedural)

involves retrieval of information without conscious recollection

Explicit Memory (declarative)

intentional remembering of information learned at a specific point in time

Long Term Memory

ability to remember extensive amounts of information from a few seconds to a few hours to decades

Semantic Memory

concerns learning and remembering the meaning of words and concepts not tied to specific occurrences of events in time

Episodic Memory

general class of memory having to do with conscious recollection of information from a specific event in time

more decline

Recall

people are asked to remember information without hints or clues

Recognition

selecting previously learned information from among several items

Episodic Memory

involves day to day activiites

conscious recollection of personal experiences tied to particular times

Encoding

converting information to be studied

using strategies to do this

Retrieval

strategies to bring stored memory to conscious awareness

Prospective Memory

remembering to remember something in the future

ex: pick up your kids

Autobiographical Memory (episodic)

involves remembering information and events from our life

Flashbulb Memories

memories for personally traumatic or unexpected events

Source Memory

ability to remember the source of a familiar event as well as the ability to determine if an event was imagined or actually happened

Cognitive Reserve

factors that help preserve memory performance

Ex: exercise, multilingualism

Information Processing Model

computer metaphor to explain how people process stimuli

information enters storage temporarily until it is permanent (USB drive), later use information (open a file)

Internal Memory Aids

mental retracing, turning letters into numbers, forming acronyms out of initials, mentally placing items in locations in a familiar environment

External Memory Aids

tools or electronic devices to help you remember

Memory Self Efficacy

individual’s belief in themselves to perform memory related tasks

Meta Memory

person’s knowledge about their own memory capabilities and monitoring of their memory process

Intra Individual Variability

moment to moment changes

Inter Individual Variability

person to person changes

Procedural Memory

type of implicit memory

motor skills and routines that have been learned and now don’t require any thought

Semantic Elaboration

connect new information to real world context

Plasticity

range of functioning within an individual and conditions a person’s abilities can be modified under within a specific age range

declines when not in use

Mechanics of Intelligence

neurophysiological architecture of the mind, bases of cognitive abilities like processing, reasoning, attention, etc.

growth is in childhood and adolescence

Pragmatic Intelligence

acquired bodies of knowledge from culture like verbal knowledge, wisdom, practical problem solving

growth is in adulthood

Psychometric Approach

research on intelligence through standardized testing, problem solving and verbal abilities

Cognitive Structural Approach

measure intelligence through ways people conceptualize and solve problems

Structure of Intelligence

organization of interrelated intellectual abilities in 5 levels

use factor analysis to determine if performance on one test can predict performance on another test

Primary Mental Abilities

intellectual abilities studied as groups of related skills

including numbers, word fluency, verbal meaning, inductive reasoning, spatial orientation

Secondary Mental Abilities

related groups of primary mental abilities

fluid and crystallized intelligence

Fluid Intelligence

abilities that make you a flexible and adaptive thinker, make inferences, understand relationships between concepts

inductive reasoning, abstract thinking, etc.

Crystallized Intelligence

knowledge acquired through life experience and education in a culture

Terminal Decline

measureable drop in physical and cognitive capacity in the final months or years of life

Delirium

confused thinking and reduced awareness of one’s environment that develop rapidly

difficulties with attention, memory, orientation, and speech

causes: stroke, medication, infection, dehydration, cardiovascular disease

Beta-Amyloid Plaques

protein surrounded by degenerated fragments of dead neurons

Neurofibrillary Tangles

accumulation of neurofilaments that become wrapped around each other

interfere with the transmission of information

Beta Amyloid Hypothesis

beta amyloid deposists create plaques and neurofibrillary tangles which cause neuron death and Alzheimer’s disease

changes in blood flow to brain, inflammation, APOE e4

Tau Protein

stabilizes microtubules to transport nutrients, in alzheimer’s it dettaches from microtubules

Tau Hypothesis

progression is driven by aggregation of tau protein

Acquired Capacity for Suicide

a person’s learned ability to overcome natural fear of death and physical pain in order to harm themselves

Thwarted Belongingness

the need to belong is not being met, socially isolated

can lead to suicide

Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale

tool to assess suicide risk