applied themes in ageing

what is the main theoretical reasoning behind completing mental exercise

WM capacity constrains a wide range of cognitive functions, including fluid intelligence → expanding WM capacity should also benefit the cognitive functions that it constrains

what is a problem with the theoretical reasoning behind completing mental exercise

though WM abilities are correlated with other cognitive functions, this doesn’t mean there is a causal link between them → we need to therefore investigate whether general cognitive function can directly be improved through WM training

how did Singh-Manoux et al. (2003) assess levels of mental exercise day-to-day

gave participants a battery of cognitive tasks, as well as asking participants what leisure activities they participated in - these were categorised as either low cognitive effort (e.g. going to pub/gardening) or high cognitive effort (e.g. reading)

what were the results of Singh-Manoux et al. (2003)’s study + what did it control for

• found stronger positive correlations between high cognitive leisure activities + cognitive ability, compared to correlations between low cognitive effort leisure + ability

• this held even when controlling for SES, age + education → suggests regular cognitive effort is associated with better cognitive outcomes

what two hypotheses on mental exercise outcomes on ageing does Salthouse (2006) put forward

• differential preservation hypothesis

• preserved differentiation hypothesis

what is the differential preservation hypothesis

mental activity is a factor that protects against age-related decline in mental ability → this suggests that everyone starts a the same level, then engaging in high-effort cognitive activities causes cognitive functioning to increase + vice-versa

what is the preserved differentiation hypothesis

mental activity is at least partly a manifestation of one’s prior level of mental ability → suggests that people have varying starting rates of change, and regardless of how good one is intuitively at cognitive tasks, everyone experiences cognitive decline

what are 5 major methodological issues in the training literature

• what training conditions (e.g. duration + number of sessions) are needed in order for condition to be effective

• whether assignment is random or systematic → random assignment often cannot be implemented in whole-school environments

• how to account for pre-test differences in function → participant effects account for lots of variance in results

• whether active or passive control groups are more appropriate → passive controls run risk of unsystematic variation in experimental group being measured, but active control groups need to elicit same level of enthusiasm without being mentally-stimulating

• adaptive procedures → whether to make tasks harder when participants adapt to them, or keep them at same difficulty level

what are 4 major practical issues in the training literature

• publication bias → papers are more likely to be published if they find an effect than if results are insignificant, and replication studies are often not published (particularly important for cognitive training)

• how maintenance of any training gains long-term can be assessed

• initial cognitive ability as a potential moderator of the intervention

• near + far transfer effects

what is near transfer + an example of it

near transfer is the assessment of whether positive effects from cognitive training on a task is found when completing a different task that measures the same cognitive ability

• e.g. initial WM training through an N-back task → follow up by completing digit span task

what is far transfer + why is it the gold standard of mental exercise research

the assessment of whether positive effects from cognitive training on a particular task are found when completing a different task that represents a related but distinct construct

• e.g. initial WM training through an N-back task → follow up by completing a reasoning task

for training to have a generalisable benefit, it needs to transfer to situations different from the training itself, as it suggests we identified a causal mechanism that underpins a range of behaviours

what did results of Karbach & Verhaeghen (2014)’s meta-analysis of near + far transfer of mental exercise suggest

• found a large effect size of completing trained tasks + near transfer tasks, as well as a medium effect size for training far tasks + no age differences in the effectiveness of training programmes

• suggests general cognition dies improve with far tasks, so cognitive tasks are beneficial

• also found improvement in active + passive controls → indicates placebo effect

what 4 issues did Melby-Lervåg & Hulme (2016) find with Karbach & Verhaeghen (2014)’s study on the efficacy of mental training

• the far transfer task = reasoning + task-switching merged (didn’t measure one distinct construct → task switching is EF, which is a near-transfer)

• did not correct for baseline differences between groups

• unclear which studies were used in the meta-analysis

• there was one major outlier in results

what did Melby-Lervåg & Hulme (2016) find when correcting for these issues

removed 13 studies from the original analysis (k = 17) that were not properly conducted, and with those leftover found very few gains

• found mild positive effects when compared to passive controls, but very little evidence for effect in comparison to active controls

• shows when making more conservative choices e.g. in controlling for outliers + what constitutes as ‘far transfer’, there is very little evidence for far-transfer

what have more recent meta-analyses on cognitive training of WM found (Sala et al., 2019; Hou et al., 2020)

• one found smaller effects for near + far transfer tasks, but null when compared to active controls

• another found significant long-term effects for near transfer, but weaker-null effects for far transfer tasks

overall suggests that effectiveness of mental exercise on far transfer is doubtful, and clear benefits are only seen on trained tasks

what were Rowe + Kahn (1987)’s 3 characteristics for successful aging + what could this suggest is important in relation to cognitive ability

• high cognitive + physical function

• low probability of disease + disability

• active engagement in life

the third suggests, along with Singh-Manoux et al. (2003)’s study on high-cognitive leisure activities, that an engaging + healthy lifestyle may have more of an impact on cognitive function than specific training

what is the WHO (2015)’s definition of healthy ageing

sustaining functional ability in everyday life → being mobile, maintaining relationships + lifelong learning

what did Sala + Guye et al. (2019) find in relation to healthy lifestyles + ageing

engaging in leisure activities is positively related to all 3 indicators of successful ageing (cognitive function, physical function + mental health), including sports + gaming

what was Park et al. (2013)’s 2-phase method of assessing the effect of training lifestyle on cognitive function

assessed whether changes someone’s lifestyle would reap cognitive benefits:

• intervention phase → participants were placed into each condition for 15 hr/week structured activities for 3 months:

  • productive engagement → photography, quilting or both (high cognitive demand

  • receptive engagement → social group (low cognitive demand) + placebo (low social + cognitive demand)

  • control group (no contact)

• test phase → participants completed a cognitive battery (far transfer) assessing:

  • processing speed → digit comparison

  • cognitive control → Flanker task

  • EM → recall + recognition memory

  • visuospatial processing → CANTAB

what were Park et al. (2013)’s results

• the only notable effect was the photography lifestyle conduction producing better episodic memory on average → theoretical explanations for these findings are unclear

what are 3 issues with Park et al. (2013)’s research

• lifestyle = a long-term, all-encompassing concept → adding 15 hours of content a week, while a substantial amount, is a small change + unlikely to be continued

• lifestyles can be highly diverse so for generalisable research, large sample would be necessary to account for individual differences

• lifestyles are chosen by each individual (to a certain extent), rather than imposed by external factors,

in what way are conclusions from ageing research disconnected from real life + what does this suggest

middle/older aged people are overrepresented as CEOs, even though top reasoning ability is most evident in younger ages → suggests age-related declines can occur in important cognitive abilities without major consequences for functioning in society

what did Verhaeghen et al. (2012) find in terms of how older people are rated by coworkers

even though age was negatively correlated with cognitive abilities, there was no correlation found between age and job performance measures, even though these must take into account cognitive abilities

in what 3 factors may there be age-increases in performance

along with semantic memory, there may be increases in:

• concern for others

• wisdom

• expertise (specific knowledge in a domain)

what 3 findings support concern for others increasing in older adulthood

• negative behavioural tendencies (e.g. criminal behaviour) decline steeply through adulthood (Cornelius et al., 2017)

• prosocial traits + behaviours increase across adulthood (Roberts et al., 2006)

• charitable giving + volunteering increase up to ~70 years old (Freund & Blanchard-Fields, 2014)

  • confound may be having more free hours due to retirement, though the finding still stands when controlling for this

what is wisdom

expert knowledge about the fundamental questions regarding the meaning + conduct of life → less factual knowledge, more of a combination of emotional + cognitive knowledge

what are the 5 factors within the Berlin Wisdom Paradigm (Baltes & Smith, 1990)

• factual knowledge

• procedural knowledge

• life-span contextualism → framing current events in context of previous ones; essentially lessons learnt

• value relativism + tolerance → tolerance of the views of others

• awareness + management of uncertainty

what did Staudinger and Baltes (1996) find when associating wisdom + age

found no significant correlation (r = -.07) between self-rated wisdom + age → this may be due to wisdom being context dependent rather than general

how did Thomas & Kunzmann (2013) study rates of wisdom in younger + older participants + what were the findings

• participants were shown video clips depicting life problems concerning marital conflict + suicide, and asked to give advice

• no difference was shown in wisdom scores discussing suicide, but because marital conflict is more relevant to younger adults, they show greater wisdom for this topic

shows there is no association between age + wisdom, and it changes situationally

what is expertise

knowledge in a specific domain that is verified/less accessible to others

what does Strittermatter et al. (2020)’s study on domain-specific expertise demonstrate

study analysed 125 years worth of chess games + compared individual moves in each gaim against an optimal move suggested by a chess engine

• found optimal performance increases with age until early 20s + plateaus until around 35 years, where it then declines

• this demonstrates the Flynn effect, where people over multiple generations get better on average at tasks → lowest ends of the distribution are improved

shows expertise is well preserved over time, even if it declines later in life

what did Castel (2007) study regarding generalisability of expertise + how

whether expertise could be used to support broader cognitive function through improving associative binding → ability to remember arbitrarily-paired pieces of information

• participants were asked to remember sentences with arbitrary numbers, objects + locations

• participants were either younger adults, older adults, or older adults who were also accountants

what were Castel (2007)’s findings + what does this suggest

• found young adults were twice as likely to remember info than general older adults due to associative binding decreasing with age

• however there was no drop-off in associative binding for people trained as accountants → numerical (domain-specific) expertise acted as a protective factor, meaning they performed better at that aspect than young adults

what did Taylor et al. (2005) study regarding expertise + what 2 different levels are there

studied whether the level of expertise of air-traffic controller (a cognitively demanding job) moderate the effect of age on aviation communication performance → this is split into 3 levels:

• VFR (lowest) → flying under visual conditions

• IFR (middle) → instrument rated, allows pilot to fly in clouds

• CFII/ATP (highest) → certified flight instructor of pilots in training

what were Taylor et al. (2005)’s findings + what does this suggest

found clear effect of both expertise and age → shows while not steep, expertise does not buffer against age-related decline (no interaction)

how do the factors in Taylor et al. (2005)’s study relate to WM

• Taylor et al. found significant correlations between performance and age, WM + expertise, and when accounting for WM + expertise, variance contributed by age significantly diminishes

• shows that the relationship between age + aviation (job) performance is explained independently by WM + expertise

in what 4 other ways can we explain the disconnect between age-related decline in lab vs sustained, good, real-world performance (Salthouse, 2011)

• we seldom need to perform at our absolute maximum level → only what’s required

• in many roles, there’s a shift with age from novel processing (fluid) to relying on accumulated knowledge (crystallised)

• cognition is not the only determinant of life success → prosocial behaviour, in which old people generally excel, is more likely to dictate job performance

• we can often make accommodations to adapt to change + conceal deficits, e.g. making use of environment/technology

overall, what are the effects of ageing in real-world settings, and how does this connect to basic lab research

prosocial behaviour increases with age, and wisdom-related knowledge and age gains in expertise appear to be domain-specific

• disconnects between real life and lab may result from these factors, as well as support structures + other non-cognitive factors that are absent in the lab