Social Understanding in Older Adults

Question 1

What are some changes in the brain when people are getting older?

Answer 1

decrease in brain volume, reduced activity of genes involved in memory storage, synaptic pruning, plasticity, and glutamate, and GABA receptors. A loss of synpases occurs in the hippocampus and basal forebrain region.

Question 2

What did they find in the patient with cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s disease?

Answer 2

Lower levels of neurogenesis in the hippocampus were associated with symptoms of cognitive
decline and reduced synaptic plasticity.

Question 3

What is Scaffolding Theory of Aging
and Cognition?

Answer 3

The brain adapts to neural atrophy(dying of brain cells) by building alternative connections, referred to as scaffolding.(older adults
who performed just as well as younger adults on a memory task used both prefrontal areas, while
only the right prefrontal cortex was used in younger participants )

Question 4

What does the physical activity support?

Answer 4

cognitive reserve, “the
structural and dynamic capacities of the brain that buffer
against atrophies and lesions”

Question 5

What is Parkinson’s disease?

Answer 5

Motor tremors, loss of balance, poor coordination,
rigidity, and difficulty moving

Question 6

What are the major three components of working memory?

Answer 6

1.Phonological loop that maintains the information about auditory stimuli
2. Visuospatial sketchpad, that maintains the information about visual stimuli
3. central executive, that oversees working memory, allocating resources where needed and monitoring whether cognitive strategies are being effective

Question 7

What is the difference between the old and young in terms of central executive?

Answer 7

Having older adults learn and perform both tasks together was too taxing for them, the younger ones perform in the contrast

Question 8

What is the changes in long-term memory?

Answer 8

Episodic memory(events) shows greater age-related declines than semantic memory(facts).

Question 9

What is tip of the tongue?

Answer 9

Older adults do find that they experience more
“blocks” at retrieving information that they know

Question 10

What is the change in prospective memory?

Answer 10

they are more likely to be time-based, than event-based, and in laboratory settings rather
than in the real-world, where older adults can show comparable or slightly better prospective