Simulating the Associate Memory Deficit of Older Adults in Long-Term and Short-Term/Working Memory: The Effects of Divided Attention in Younger Adults

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moshe Naveh-Benjamin ◽  
Matthew S. Brubaker
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Divided Attention ◽  
Memory Deficit ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Younger Adults

Long-Term Recreational Cannabis Use Is Associated With Lower Executive Function and Processing Speed in a Pilot Sample of Older Adults

2021 ◽  
pp. 089198872110491
Author(s):  
Katie Stypulkowski ◽  
Rachel E. Thayer
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Executive Function ◽  
Cognitive Function ◽  
Processing Speed ◽  
Bimodal Distribution ◽  
Cannabis Use ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Small Pilot Study

More older adults are using cannabis for recreational and/or medical purposes, but most studies examining cognitive function and cannabis use do not include older adults. The current small pilot study sought to compare cognitive function and emotional functioning among adults age 60 and older who were regular, primarily recreational cannabis users ( n = 28) and nonusers ( n = 10). A bimodal distribution was observed among cannabis users such that they had either initiated regular use more recently (“short-term” users; ≤7 years, n = 13) or earlier in life (“long-term” users; ≥19 years, n = 15). Nonusers, short-term, and long-term users were not different in depression, anxiety, or emotion regulation, or alcohol use. Nonusers scored significantly higher than long-term users in executive function. Short-term users scored significantly higher than long-term users in executive function, processing speed, and general cognition. Additionally, greater recent cannabis use frequency was negatively associated with working memory. The current findings suggest that short-term recreational cannabis use does not result in differences in cognitive performance compared to nonusers, which may indicate that short-term use is relatively benign in older adults. However, longer duration of use is associated with poorer processing speed and executive functioning, and more recent cannabis use is associated with poorer working memory, which may impact older adults’ overall cognitive functioning.

scholarly journals Self-harm in older people: a clear need for specialist assessment and care

2012 ◽  
Vol 200 (5) ◽  
pp. 356-358 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael S. Dennis ◽  
David W. Owens
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Older People ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Suicide Rates ◽  
Self Harm ◽  
Evidence Based Care

SummarySuicide rates are generally elevated after episodes of non-fatal self-harm, especially among older adults. Evidence suggests that non-fatal and fatal self-harm are more closely related in older than in younger adults. Older people who have self-harmed need specialist assessment followed by good short-term and long-term evidence-based care.

scholarly journals Semantic Relatedness Corrects the Age-Related Binding Deficit in Working Memory and Episodic Memory

2019 ◽  
Vol 75 (9) ◽  
pp. 1841-1849 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vanessa M Loaiza ◽  
Sabina Srokova
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Semantic Relatedness ◽  
Item Memory ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Long Term Retention

Abstract Objectives It is well known that age differentially impacts aspects of long-term episodic memory (EM): Whereas a binding deficit indicates that older adults are less capable than younger adults to encode or retrieve associations between information (e.g., the pairing between two memoranda, such as lock – race), item memory is relatively intact (e.g., recognizing lock without its original pairing). Method We tested whether this deficit could be corrected by facilitating establishment of the bindings in working memory (WM) through adapting the semantic relatedness of studied pairs according to participants’ ongoing performance (Experiments 1 and 2). We also examined whether this was evident for the long-term retention of pairs that were not tested in WM (Experiment 2). Results The results revealed matched binding and item memory in WM and EM between age groups. Most importantly, older adults required increased semantic strength between word pairs to achieve similar performance to that of younger adults, regardless of whether pairs were immediately tested during the WM task. Discussion These findings indicate that relying on their superior semantic memory can correct the commonly exhibited profound deficit in binding memory in older age.

Short-Term Changes in General and Memory-Specific Control Beliefs and their Relationship to Cognition in Younger and Older Adults

2007 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allison A. M. Bielak ◽  
David F. Hultsch ◽  
Judi Levy-Ajzenkopf ◽  
Stuart W. S. MacDonald ◽  
Michael A. Hunter ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Locus Of Control ◽  
Perceived Control ◽  
Control Beliefs ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Actual Performance ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Specific Control

We examined short-term changes in younger and older adults' control beliefs. Participants completed measures of general and memory-specific competence and locus of control on 10 bi-monthly occasions. At each occasion, participants rated their control beliefs prior to and following completion of a battery of cognitive tasks. Exposure to the set of cognitively demanding tasks led to declines in older adults' ratings of both general and memory-specific competence compared to little change or increases in younger adults' ratings. Older adults were also more inconsistent in their reported locus of control beliefs across the 10 occasions. Analyses examining the relationship between control beliefs and actual cognitive performance revealed few significant effects, suggesting that short-term changes in perceived control are not driven by monitoring changes in actual performance. The results suggest the importance of assessing short-term as well as long-term changes in perceived control to obtain a complete picture of aging-related changes.

scholarly journals A simulation of older adults’ associative memory deficit using structural process interference in young adults

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (11) ◽  
pp. e0258574
Author(s):  
Yafit Oscar-Strom ◽  
Jonathan Guez
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Associative Memory ◽  
Divided Attention ◽  
Resource Competition ◽  
Memory Deficit ◽  
Associative Recognition ◽  
Secondary Tasks ◽  
Associative Deficit

Associative memory deficit underlies a part of older adults’ deficient episodic memory due to the reduced ability to bind units of information. In this article we further assess the mechanism underlying this deficit, by assessing the degree to which we can model it in young adults under conditions of divided attention. We shall describe two experiments in this paper; these experiments investigate item and associative recognition in young adults under full- or divided-attention conditions. The secondary tasks employed were N-back like (NBL), which serves as a working memory updating task, and parity judgement and visuospatial (VS) tasks, which serve as non-working memory tasks. The results of both experiments show that only the NBL specifically affected associative recognition, while the other tasks affected item and associative memory to the same degree, indicating a general resource competition. These results presented a convergence of evidence for the associative deficit in older adults by modelling it in young adults.

scholarly journals The Effects of Elaboration on Working Memory and Long-term Memory across Age

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lea Maria Bartsch ◽  
Klaus Oberauer
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Memory Deficit ◽  
Memory Test ◽  
Free Time ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Time Intervals ◽  
Term Memory

Free time to attend to and process information in working memory is key in promotingimmediate and delayed retention. One candidate process to cause this benefit is elaboration. Weconducted three experiments with young adults – two of which included older adults – toinvestigate whether free time is used for elaboration, and whether elaboration causes the free-timebenefit. Participants remembered lists of nouns, interleaved with short or long free-time intervals,or with filler words connecting all the nouns into a meaningful sentence to assist elaboration. Foryoung adults, assisted elaboration through sentences, and the additional instruction to form amental image, benefited performance in a working-memory test as much as longer free time, butnot more. In contrast, for a delayed test of long-term memory, the benefits of sentence elaborationexceeded those of longer free time. Older adults did not benefit from assisted elaborations in thedelayed test, providing further evidence that the long-term memory deficit of older adults arises atleast in part from a deficit in elaboration. This elaboration deficit is not driven by a deficit ingenerating richer representations.

Conceptual short-term memory (CSTM) supports core claims of Christiansen and Chater

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary C. Potter
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Rapid Serial Visual Presentation ◽  
Language Comprehension ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Visual Presentation ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Use Of Knowledge

AbstractRapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) of words or pictured scenes provides evidence for a large-capacity conceptual short-term memory (CSTM) that momentarily provides rich associated material from long-term memory, permitting rapid chunking (Potter 1993; 2009; 2012). In perception of scenes as well as language comprehension, we make use of knowledge that briefly exceeds the supposed limits of working memory.

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