Showing papers in "Experimental Aging Research in 2015"
TL;DR: Findings provide support for accumulating evidence on the adverse mental health effects of discrimination among older African Americans and do not support a role for a buffering effect of resources on discrimination and depressive symptoms.
Abstract: Background/Study Context: Several studies have demonstrated a link between perceived discrimination and depression in ethnic minority groups, yet most have focused on younger or middle-aged African Americans and little is known about factors that may moderate the relationship.Methods: Participants were 487 older African Americans (60–98 years old) enrolled in the Minority Aging Research Study. Discrimination, depressive symptoms, and psychological and social resources were assessed via interview using validated measures. Ordinal logistic regression models were used to assess (1) the main relationship between discrimination and depression and (2) resilience, purpose in life, social isolation, and social networks as potential moderators of this relationship.Results: In models adjusted for age, sex, education, and income, perceived discrimination was positively associated with depressive symptoms (odds ratio [OR]: 1.20, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.10–1.31; p < .001). However, there was no evidence of eff...
87 citations
TL;DR: This analysis of muscle power decline in Masters athletes is only partially in line with the results of works based on clinical tests, but can be further developed with a suitable database for male and female Masters performances to facilitate longitudinal studies, which are currently lacking.
Abstract: Background/Study Context: The capacity to perform everyday tasks is directly related to the muscular power the body can develop (see Appendix). The age-related loss of power is a fact, but the characterization or the rate of muscle power loss remains an open issue. Data useful to study the decline of the skeletal muscles power are largely available from sources other than medical tests, e.g., from track and field competitions of Masters athletes. The aim of our study is to identify the age-related decline trend of the power developed by the athletes in carrying out the track and field events.Methods: Absolute male world records of 16 events were collected along with world records of male Masters categories. Performance was normalized with respect to the absolute record; the performance of various age groups is consequently represented by a number ranging from 1 (world absolute records) to 0 (null performance). The performance of a jumping event is transformed into a parameter proportional to the power dev...
52 citations
TL;DR: Older adults should promote their health physically, psychologically, and socially by maintaining nonfrailty, developing frailty, and high risk of frailty among older adults over time.
Abstract: Background/Study Context: This study aimed to identify the different trajectories of frailty and factors related to frailty among older adults over time.Methods: Data were obtained from a five-wave panel composed of older Taiwanese adults from 1993 to 2007 (N = 2306). Frailty was defined as the presence of three or more of the following criteria: shrinking, weakness, exhaustion, slowness, and low physical activity. A group-based model of trajectory analysis was applied with time-dependent and time-independent variables.Results: Three trajectory groups were identified: maintaining nonfrailty, developing frailty, and high risk of frailty. Being female, older, and having a lower level of education were risk factors for being in the developing frailty group or high risk of frailty group. Physical risk factors and psychological factors were associated with frailty within each group. Higher financial satisfaction and social participation were protective factors from frailty for the developing frailty group and ...
41 citations
TL;DR: Older adults seem to place higher emphasis on emotional material relative to neutral faces, showing better memory for the association between statements and emotional faces.
Abstract: Background/Study Context: Destination memory, remembering the destination of the information that one tells, shows significant age-related decline. In the present paper, the authors sought to determine whether destination memory can be improved in older adults using emotional stimuli. This aim was motivated by findings showing better context memory for emotional than for neutral information in older adults. Methods: Younger and older adults were asked to tell neutral facts to three types of faces: a neutral one, an emotionally positive one, and an emotionally negative one. On a later recognition test, participants were asked to associate each previously told fact with the face to whom it was told. Results: Destination memory performance was better for facts told to negative than to positive faces, and the latter memory was better than for neutral faces in older adults. Conclusion: Older adults seem to place higher emphasis on emotional material relative to neutral faces, showing better memory for the association between statements and emotional faces.
33 citations
TL;DR: It is indicated that positive self-perception of aging moderates the effects of stereotype threat, and that positive information promotes better memory performance for those older adults with a poorer self- Perceptions of aging.
Abstract: Background/Study Context: The aim of this research is to explore whether segments of seniors might be immune to aging stereotypes of the older adult group. Stereotype threat research indicates that older adults show low memory recall under conditions of stereotype threat. Stereotype internalization theory (Levy, 2009) predicts that a positive perception of aging has favorable effects on the behavior and health of older people.Methods: A total of 112 older adult participants (62% women, aged 55 to 78) attending the University Programme for Older Adults were assigned to one of two conditions: stereotype threat condition and positive information condition. A control group was included from participants in the same program (n = 34; 61% women, aged 55 to 78). Individual differences in self-perception of aging were considered as continuous variable.Results: Participants with better self-perception of aging showed better memory performance than those with poorer self-perception of aging in the stereotype threat ...
33 citations
TL;DR: The findings suggest that MI is not a global phenomenon, as it decays in old age independently in the temporal and in the spatial domain, decays less with simple than with complex tasks, and less in an everyday-like than in a typical laboratory setting.
Abstract: Background/Study Context: Mental training may potentially enhance motor performance and self-efficacy in older adults. However, several studies revealed an age-related decay of motor imagery (MI), which suggests that mental training might be too challenging for older adults. Recognizing that laboratory results are often not transferable to real-life situations, the purpose of the present study was to evaluate imagery performance in the elderly with a more real-life-like approach.Methods: MI performance of 21 older (70.28 ± 4.65 years) and 19 younger adults (24.89 ± 3.16 years) was estimated by mental chronometry from the first-person perspective. Subjects were asked to walk in a supermarket scenario straight ahead (A), or with two changes of direction (B), or with two changes of direction while retrieving products (C). The three tasks were completed first in the subjects’ imagination and then in reality, with time required as the dependent measure. MI ability was also assessed by the Controllability of Mo...
29 citations
TL;DR: At high levels of pain intensity, interference decreased with age, although the age by pain intensity interaction effect was small, which converges with aging theories, including socioemotional selectivity theory, which posits that as people age, they become more motivated to maximize positive emotions and minimize negative ones.
Abstract: Background/Study Context: Chronic pain is associated with increased interference in daily functioning that becomes more pronounced as pain intensity increases. Based on previous research showing that older adults maintain well-being in the face of pain as well as or better than their younger counterparts, the current study examined the interaction of age and pain intensity on interference in a sample of chronic orofacial pain patients.Methods: Data were obtained from the records of 508 chronic orofacial pain patients being seen for an initial evaluation from 2008 to 2012. Collected data included age (range: 18–78) and self-reported measures of pain intensity and pain interference. Bivariate correlations and regression models were used to assess for statistical interactions.Results: Regression analyses revealed that pain intensity positively predicted pain interference (R2 = .35, B = 10.40, SE = 0.62, t(507) = 16.70, p < .001). A significant interaction supported the primary hypothesis that aging was assoc...
26 citations
TL;DR: It is suggested that semantic implausibility, along with syntactic complexity, increases linguistic and cognitive processing loads on auditory sentence comprehension and the contribution of inhibitory control to the processing of semantic plausibility, particularly among older adults, suggests that the relationship between cognitive ability and language comprehension is strongly influenced by age.
Abstract: Background/Study Context: Older adults show age-related decline in complex-sentence comprehension This has been attributed to a decrease in cognitive abilities that may support language processing, such as working memory (eg, Caplan, DeDe, Waters, & Michaud, 2011,Psychology and Aging, 26, 439–450) The authors examined whether older adults have difficulty comprehending semantically implausible sentences and whether specific executive functions contribute to their comprehension performanceMethods: Forty-two younger adults (aged 18–35) and 42 older adults (aged 55–75) were tested on two experimental tasks: a multiple negative comprehension task and an information processing batteryResults: Both groups, older and younger adults, showed poorer performance for implausible sentences than for plausible sentences; however, no interaction was found between plausibility and age group A regression analysis revealed that inhibition efficiency, as measured by a task that required resistance to proactive interfer
25 citations
TL;DR: For example, the authors found that negative arousal produces similar effects on attention in older adults, with negative arousal eliciting more attention than less salient stimuli, while positive arousal elicited less attention than negative arousal.
Abstract: Background/Study Context: Stimuli compete for mental representation, with salient stimuli attracting more attention than less salient stimuli. In a recent study, we found that presenting an emotionally negative arousing sound before briefly showing an array of letters with different levels of salience increased the reporting of the more salient letters but decreased reporting of the less salient letters (Sutherland & Mather, 2012, Emotion, 12, 1367–1372). In the current study we examined whether negative arousal produces similar effects on attention in older adults.Methods: Data from 55 older adults (61–80 years; M = 70.7, SD = 5.1) were compared with those from 110 younger adults (18–29 years; M = 20.3, SD = 2.3) from Sutherland and Mather (2012). Neutral or negative arousing sound clips were played before a brief presentation of eight letters, three of which were presented in a darker font than the others to create a group of high- and low-salience targets. Next, participants recalled as many of the let...
23 citations
TL;DR: Caution is required in aging research when pooling data across studies using different measures of the same construct in order to identify flawed assumptions in rational or configural approaches to harmonization.
Abstract: Background/Study Context: Harmonizing measures in order to conduct pooled data analyses has become a scientific priority in aging research. Retrospective harmonization where different studies lack common measures of comparable constructs presents a major challenge. This study compared different approaches to harmonization with a crosswalk sample who completed multiple versions of the measures to be harmonized.Methods: Through online recruitment, 1061 participants aged 30 to 98 answered two different depression scales, and 1065 participants answered multiple measures of subjective health. Rational and configural methods of harmonization were applied, using the crosswalk sample to determine their success; and empirical item response theory (IRT) methods were applied in order empirically to compare items from different measures as answered by the same person.Results: For depression, IRT worked well to provide a conversion table between different measures. The rational method of extracting semantically matche...
20 citations
TL;DR: The results support the use of age-appropriate normative data for oldest-old individuals and compare cognitive performances of cognitively intact elderly individuals from the Framingham Heart Study.
Abstract: Background/Study Context: The number of individuals who reach extreme age is quickly increasing. Much of the current literature focuses on impaired cognition in extreme age, and debate continues regarding what constitutes “normal” cognition in extreme age. This study aimed to provide oldest-old normative data and to compare cognitive performances of cognitively intact elderly individuals from the Framingham Heart Study.Methods: A total of 1302 individuals aged 65+ years from the Framingham Heart Study were separated into 5-year age bands and compared on cognitive tests. Multivariate linear regression analyses were conducted, adjusting for gender, the Wide Range Achievement Test—Third Edition (WRAT-III) Reading score, and cohort. Analyses also included comparisons between 418 individuals aged 80+ and 884 individuals aged 65–79, and comparisons within oldest-old age bands.Results: Normative data for all participants are presented. Significant differences were found on most tests between age groups in the ov...
TL;DR: The rate of psychotropic drug use in general and their anticholinergic burden are similar in acutely admitted elderly patients with or without hip fractures, however, higher usage rate of anxiolytics found in the patients with hip fractures may indicate that this is a risk factor for hip fractures related to falls in elderly patients living in the community.
Abstract: Background/Study Context: Psychotropic drug treatment has been associated with increased risk for falls and hip fractures in elderly patients. The authors examined the association between drug treatment and hip fractures resulting from falls in elderly hospitalized patients, focusing on the medications’ anticholinergic properties.Methods: This retrospective case-control study was conducted in an acute geriatric ward in a general medical center. Medical records, including demographic, clinical, biochemical, and pharmacological variables, of elderly patients with hip fractures from falls (N = 185), admitted during a 2-year period, were reviewed and compared with a control group (N = 187) of patients matched for age and gender and without hip fractures.Results: The usage rates of antipsychotics, antidepressants, mood stabilizers, and various nonpsychiatric medications were similar in the two groups, except for hypnotics-anxiolytics (higher rates in hip-fracture patients). The Cumulative Illness Rating Scale ...
TL;DR: In both age groups, dual-task processing was speeded up with practice and variability associated with the means was reduced, indicating that the relationship between performance variability and executive control functions under some specific conditions is suggested.
Abstract: Background/Study Context: The variability associated with reaction time (RT) is sometimes considered as a proxy for inefficient neural processing, particularly in old age and complex situations relying upon executive control functions. Here, it is examined whether the amount of variability exhibited early in practice can predict the amount of improvement with later practice in dual-task performance, and whether the predictive power of variability varies between younger and older adults.Methods: To investigate the relationship between variability and practice-related improvement, RT mean and variability data are used, obtained from an experiment in which younger and older adults performed two tasks in single-task and dual-task conditions across seven practice sessions. These RT and variability data were related to the single-task and dual-task practice benefits. These benefits were computed as follows: dual-task/single-task RTs at the beginning of practice minus dual-task/single-task RTs at the end of prac...
TL;DR: These results support the beneficial effect of habitual physical activity in spatial memory, and show that older men (70–77 years old) displayed a poorer performance in comparison with the other age groups.
Abstract: Background/Study Context: Cognitive abilities experience diverse age-related changes. Memory complaints are common in aging. The practice of sports is known to benefit brain functioning, improving memory among other abilities. Introduction of virtual reality tasks makes it possible to easily assess cognitive functions such as spatial memory, a hippocampus-dependent cognitive ability.Methods: In this study, the authors applied a virtual reality–based task to study spatial reference memory in two groups of men, sportsmen (n = 28) and sedentary (n = 28), across three different age groups: 50–59, 60–69, and 70–77 years.Results: The data showed that sportsmen outperformed sedentary participants. In addition, there was also a significant effect of the factor age. Hence, older men (70–77 years old) displayed a poorer performance in comparison with the other age groups.Conclusions: These results support the beneficial effect of habitual physical activity in spatial memory.
TL;DR: Findings have important implications for the understanding of the mechanisms underlying within-item strategy switching and aging effects on these mechanisms as well as, more generally, of strategic variations during cognitive aging.
Abstract: Background/Study Context: This study investigated age-related differences in within-item strategy switching (ie, revising initial strategy choices to select a better strategy while solving a given problem) and in strategy switch costs (ie, longer latencies when participants switch strategies than when they do not switch strategy during strategy execution)Methods: In a computational estimation task, participants had to give approximate products to two-digit multiplication problems (eg, 41 × 67) while rounding up (ie, do 50 × 70 for 41 × 67) or rounding down (ie, do 40 × 60 for 41 × 67) operands to their nearest decades After executing a cued strategy during 1000 ms, participants had the possibility to switch to another strategy (or repeat the same strategy) in a selection condition In an execution condition, participants were forced to repeat the same strategy or to switch to another strategyResults: It was found that (1) older adults were less able than young adults to switch strategy after
TL;DR: The TUG test best discriminates elderly women with low and high concern about falls; therefore, it is an important test that should be performed during the assessment of elderly individuals afraid of falling.
Abstract: Background/Study Context: Limited research exists on functional tests in the discrimination of elderly individuals with high concern about falls from individuals with low concern about falls. The purpose of this study was to determine which functional test best discriminates between elderly women with low and high concern about falls.Methods: One hundred thirty-five elderly women (72.6 ± 4.8 years) were divided into two groups based on their Falls Efficacy Scale—International score: low concern (n = 56) and high concern (n = 79) about falls. Five functional tests were applied: Timed Up and Go test (TUG), unipodal stance test, five-repetition sit-to-stand test (5-STS), gait velocity, and grip strength. Factorial analysis and discriminant analysis were used.Results: Factorial analysis resulted in three factors that explained 83.8% of the total variance. Factor 1, with 49.5% of total variance explanation, was represented by the TUG, 5-STS, and gait velocity tests and was the only factor to discriminate betwe...
TL;DR: When there are many repeated measures, BJM of longitudinal functional disability and interval-censored survival can potentially increase the precision of individual survival curves relative to those from a separate survival model.
Abstract: Background/Study Context: It has not been previously demonstrated whether Bayesian joint modeling (BJM) of disability and survival can, under certain conditions, improve precision of individual survival curves.Methods: A longitudinal, observational study wherein 754 initially nondisabled community-dwelling adults in greater New Haven, Connecticut, were observed on a monthly basis for over 10 years.Results: In this study, BJM exploited many monthly observations to demonstrate, relative to a separate survival model with adjustment, improved precision of individual survival curves, permitting detection of significant differences between survival curves of two similar individuals. The gain in precision was lost when using only those observations from intervals of 6, 9, or 12 months.Conclusion: When there are many repeated measures, BJM of longitudinal functional disability and interval-censored survival can potentially increase the precision of individual survival curves relative to those from a separate surv...
TL;DR: It is demonstrated that older adults showed increased elaboration of emotion, particularly when emotion cues were subtle and provide support for greater emotion differentiation in older adulthood.
Abstract: Background/Study Context: The current study examined age differences in the number of emotion components used in the judgment of emotion from facial expressions. Methods: Fifty-eight younger and 58 older adults were compared on the complexity of perception of emotion from standardized facial expressions that were either clear or ambiguous exemplars of emotion.Results: Using an intra-individual factor analytic approach, results showed that older adults used more emotion components in perceiving emotion in faces than younger adults. Both age groups reported greater emotional complexity for the clear and prototypical emotional stimuli. Age differences in emotional complexity were more pronounced for the ambiguous expressions compared with the clear expressions.Conclusion: These findings demonstrate that older adults showed increased elaboration of emotion, particularly when emotion cues were subtle and provide support for greater emotion differentiation in older adulthood.
TL;DR: It is suggested that memory performance in EDL is a different construct than when it is measured in the laboratory and that memory alterations in older adults are especially pronounced inEDL tasks.
Abstract: Background/Study Context: Memory performance in everyday life (EDL) and its change through aging is still unclear because laboratory results are often not transferable to real-life situations. Therefore, a naturalistic memory task was designed to investigate memory performance in older adults in a representative task design.Methods: The memory performance of 23 older (70.28 ± 4.65 years) and 20 younger adults (24.89 ± 3.16 years) was assessed by using four established tasks of short-term and working memory (Digit Simple Span, Digit Complex Span, Grid Simple Span, and Grid Complex Span) that differed in difficulty and domain (verbal vs. visual-spatial). To simulate an EDL context, a “Supermarket” was constructed within the laboratory.Results: The results showed that memory performance presents alterations in older adults. This was especially true for the “Supermarket” task, in which the younger adults showed benefits in the common environment as opposed to older adults. A factor analysis showed that the fo...
TL;DR: Both cognitive and motivational facets of deficient flexibility contribute to the reliance of older adults on stereotypes compared with younger adults, but this is only true when older adults process information about outgroup members, but not about ingroup members.
Abstract: Background/Study Context: The current study was designed to examine previously reported findings about age-related changes in drawing stereotypic inferences; specifically, that older adults are more likely than younger adults to stereotype outgroup members. The study replicates previous research and extends it by exploring the cognitive and motivational facets of deficient flexibility underlying this effect and comparing stereotypes towards ingroup and outgroup members.Methods: In the experiment, younger and older adults read stories that allowed for stereotypic inferences. They also completed the Trail Making Test (TMT) and Need for Closure Scale (NFC) as cognitive and motivational measures of deficient flexibility.Results: The results of the experiment revealed that, compared to younger participants, older adults were more likely to rely upon stereotypic inferences when they read a story about outgroup members; however, there were no age-group differences in using stereotypes when they read a story abou...
TL;DR: The literature suggests that vehicle preference, the quality of traffic-related knowledge, the location and time of traffic exposure, and personality traits should all be taken into account when assessing fitness-to-drive in older drivers.
Abstract: Background/Study Context: Older drivers are at increased risk of becoming involved in car crashes. Contrary to well-studied illness-related factors contributing to crash risk, the non-illness-related factors that can influence safety of older drivers are underresearched.Methods: Here, the authors review the literature on non-illness-related factors influencing driving in people over age 60. We identified six safety-relevant factors: road infrastructure, vehicle characteristics, traffic-related knowledge, accuracy of self-awareness, personality traits, and self-restricted driving.Results: The literature suggests that vehicle preference, the quality of traffic-related knowledge, the location and time of traffic exposure, and personality traits should all be taken into account when assessing fitness-to-drive in older drivers. Studies indicate that self-rating of driving skills does not reliably predict fitness-to-drive.Conclusions: Most factors discussed are adaptable or accessible to training and collective...
TL;DR: Findings indicate that whereas the YO adults had enough resources to inhibit intrusive names, OO adults were not able to suppress competing names, supporting the proposal of the Inhibitory Deficit Hypothesis at older ages.
Abstract: Background/Study Context: Aging has traditionally been related to impairments in proper name retrieval. This study analyzed the possible role of the Inhibitory Deficit Hypothesis in explaining face naming impairments during aging. The dynamics of inhibition have been thoroughly studied by the retrieval-practice paradigm (Anderson, Bjork, & Bjork, 1994, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 20, 1063–1087) and its aftereffect, the retrieval-induced forgetting effect.Methods: A version of the retrieval-practice paradigm was employed: younger-old (YO; mean age = 66.40, SD = 3.94) and older-old (OO; mean age = 80.94, SD = 4.53) adults were asked to repeatedly name faces of categorically related famous people.Results: Retrieval-induced forgetting for names was observed in the YO group but not in the OO group.Conclusion: These findings indicate that whereas the YO adults had enough resources to inhibit intrusive names, OO adults were not able to suppress competing names, supporting...
TL;DR: Beyond the well-known health perspective related to the regular participation of older adults in physical activity, the present results open a social optimistic perspective, in which being physically active seems a promising way to challenge the widespread and resistant stereotype content of older people commonly perpetuated.
Abstract: Background/Study Context: Based on the stereotype content model and the behaviors from intergroup affect and stereotypes map (Cuddy et al., 2008; Advances in experimental social psychology [Vol. 40, pp. 61–149], New York: Academic Press), we examined whether being physically active may challenge the traditional stereotypes related to older adults.Methods: We compared how 94 participants (Mage = 24.48 years, SD = 7.15 years) judged one of three target groups (older adults in general, physically active older adults, and socially active older adults), with regard to perceived status and competition, warmth and competence judgments, emotional and behavioral reactions.Results: Results showed that being physically active was associated with higher status and competence. Physically active older adults were specifically viewed as an admired group eliciting both active (helping) and passive facilitation (associating) tendencies.Conclusion: Beyond the well-known health perspective related to the regular participati...
TL;DR: The power of physical activity to protect EF during periods of cognitive vulnerability may extend to community-dwelling older adults with nonclinical levels of depressive symptoms.
Abstract: Background/Study Context: Physical activity is beneficial for the executive functioning (EF) of older adults, but may be particularly protective of EF when they are cognitively vulnerable, such as during depressive episodes. Intervention studies support more potent effects of physical activity on EF among clinically depressed older adults, although these results may have limited generalizability to the daily mood and physical activity of healthy, community-dwelling older adults. Methods: The current study aimed to test whether physical activity among older adults was more protective of EF during periods of cognitive vulnerability due to mildly elevated depressive symptoms. Longitudinal data from 150 generally healthy, community-dwelling older adults were collected semiannually and analyzed with multilevel modeling.Results: Physical activity was more protective of EF within individuals during periods of relatively elevated depressive symptoms.Conclusions: The power of physical activity to protect EF during...
TL;DR: In support of a response competition mechanism, older adults were more likely to complete stems with nonstudied high-frequency solutions than were younger adults.
Abstract: Background/Study Context: This study examined the effect of age and response competition on implicit memory performance.Methods: Younger and older adults studied high- and low-frequency words and took a word stem completion test that could be completed with multiple solutions. To manipulate response competition, the test list consisted of word stems that could be completed with target low-frequency words, as well as multiple other solutions with higher frequencies than the target (the high response competition condition) and word stems that could be completed with target high-frequency words, as well as multiple other solutions with lower frequencies than the target (the low response competition condition).Results: Relative to younger adults, older adults showed reduced levels of priming only under conditions of high response competition (low-frequency targets with high-frequency competitors).Conclusion: In support of a response competition mechanism, older adults were more likely to complete stems with n...
TL;DR: It is demonstrated that mere labels of “healthy” and “Alzheimer’s disease” produce significant and subtle age differences in perceived competencies of older adults, and that biases towards AD vary by age group and valence.
Abstract: BACKGROUND/STUDY CONTEXT: Older adults have more complex and differentiated views of aging than do younger adults, but less is known about age-related perceptions of Alzheimer's disease This study investigated age-related perceptions of competence of an older adult labeled as "in good health" (healthy) or "has Alzheimer's disease" (AD), using a person-perception paradigm It was predicted that older adults would provide more differentiated assessments of the two targets than would younger adults Methods Younger (n=86; 18-36 years) and older (n=66; 61-95 years) adults rated activities of daily living (ADL), instrumental activities of daily living (IADL), and memory abilities of a female target aged 75 years, described as healthy or with AD Data on anxiety about aging, knowledge of and experience with aging and AD, knowledge of memory aging, and positive and negative biases toward aging and AD were also collected Results Older adults perceived the healthy target as more capable of cognitively effortful activities (eg, managing finances) and as possessing better memory abilities than the AD target As predicted, these differences were greater than differences between targets perceived by younger adults The interaction effect remained significant after statistically controlling for relevant variables, including education and gender Additionally, exploratory analyses revealed that older adults held less positively biased views of AD than younger adults, but negatively biased views were equivalent between age groups Conclusion The results demonstrate that mere labels of "healthy" and "Alzheimer's disease" produce significant and subtle age differences in perceived competencies of older adults, and that biases towards AD vary by age group and valence Our findings extend the person-perception paradigm to an integrative analysis of aging and AD, are consistent with models of adult development, and complement current research and theory on stereotypes of aging Future directions for research on perceptions of aging are suggested
TL;DR: It is demonstrated that observer-rated factor structure of personality in centenarians is congruent with the normative structure, present first normative population-based data for personality structure in 100enarians, and offer intriguing possibilities for the role of Personality in cognitive impairment centered on neuroticism.
Abstract: Background/Study Context: We demonstrate that observer-rated factor structure of personality in centenarians is congruent with the normative structure. Prevalence of cognitive impairment, which has previously been linked to changes in personality in younger samples, is high in this age group, requiring observer ratings to obtain valid data in a population-based context. Likewise, the broad range of cognitive functioning necessitates synthesis of results across multiple measures of cognitive performance.Methods and Results: Data from 161 participants in the Georgia Centenarian Study (GCS; MAge = 100.3 years, 84% women, 20% African American, 40% community-dwelling, 30% low cognitive functioning) support strong overall correspondence with reference structure (full sample: .94; higher cognitive functioning: .94; lower cognitive functioning: .90). Centenarians with lower cognitive functioning are higher on neuroticism and lower on openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Facet-level differ...
TL;DR: It is suggested that baseline clusters based on previously established explanatory variables have potential to predict multivariate gerontologic outcomes over a long period of time.
Abstract: Background/Study Context: The potential of cluster analysis (CA) as a baseline predictor of multivariate gerontologic outcomes over a long period of time has not been previously demonstrated.Methods: Restricting candidate variables to a small group of established predictors of deleterious gerontologic outcomes, various CA methods were applied to baseline values from 754 nondisabled, community-living persons, aged 70 years or older. The best cluster solution yielded at baseline was subsequently used as a fixed explanatory variable in time-to-event models of the first occurrence of the following outcomes: any disability in four activities of daily living, any disability in four mobility measures, and death. Each outcome was recorded through a maximum of 129 months or death. Associations between baseline ordinal cluster level and first occurrence of all three outcomes were modeled over a 10-year period with proportional hazards regression and compared with the associations yielded by the analogous latent cla...
TL;DR: Disability is identified to be a highly dynamic process, which can be characterized into different trajectory clusters (e.g., no, mild, and major disability clusters), which could be used to better target strategies to prevent and/or manage disabilities in an aging population.
Abstract: Background/Study Context: This longitudinal study was conducted between 1994 and 2004 in a cohort of southern Taiwan community-living older residents. The study aims to explore the trajectories of disability and how these patterns differed between respondents who survived and those who died during data collection phases; this study also investigated how health status change and social service use predicted the different trajectories of disability.Methods: Disability, chronic disease, depression, and social service usage data were collected over six waves. Clusters of disability were used to define a categorical response variable. Baseline levels and new occurrences of chronic disease and depression and the frequency of social service use during this period were chosen as the predictors of disability trajectories.Results: Changes in levels of disability during the aging process were identified. Different trajectories clearly reflected heterogeneity within disability clusters and between surviving and nonsu...
TL;DR: The present findings show that age-related associative memory differences occur with familiarity as well as recollection and are observed in situations that do not necessarily require conscious retrieval.
Abstract: Background/Study Context: Associative memory deficit and executive functioning deficit are two alternative—but nonexclusive—accounts of the episodic memory deficit observed in aging. The first explain the episodic memory decline generally observed in aging by an associative memory deficit (memory decline per se), whereas the second explains it by an executive functioning deficit. This distinction could be critical in early discrimination between healthy aging and very mild Alzheimer’s-type dementia. Methods: Memory performance was measured in older adults (n = 20) and paired younger participants (n = 20), whereas the facial expression and auditory context (spoken voice) associated with the face were manipulated between study and test. Recollection and familiarity were estimated using a remember/know judgment, and source memory performance was obtained depending on the information to retrieve.Results: Although no between-group difference was observed for correctly recognized old faces, older participants m...