week 11: aging Flashcards
1
Q
longitudinal vs cross sectional
A
- long: compare same group over time (time money effort)
- cross: compare two groups, one old one young (quick and easy) doesnt account for variability across ppl
2
Q
cons to cross sectional studies for age
A
- personal differences
- experiences differ
- age groups vary (wide ranges for older adults)
3
Q
neurological changes in age
A
- basic changes in rate/speed of neural firing (slows w age)
- longer to engage in cog processes
- frontal lobes are less effective (dorsolateral and prefrontal worse effected)
- decline in hippocampus ability to enagage in LTP
4
Q
theories of memory and aging
A
- speed theories: rate and speed of neural firing reduces in older adults, longer cog processes
- inhibition theories: frontal deterioration / atrophy to inhibit irrelevant info
- poor formation: hippocampal deterioration / atrophy leads to inability to properly form new memories through LTP
5
Q
how to combat the declines in memory
A
- reduction is asymmetry, lateralization
- CRUNCH (compensation-related utilisation of neural circuits hypothesis)
6
Q
STM and WM in elders
A
- reduced capacity especially at high demand
- with more filler sentences, more confused and easily gets lost
- slower mental rotation (and initiating it)
7
Q
EM and elders
A
- changes in recall and recognition
- difficulty binding info to store complex EM (hyper binding w irrelevant info)
- smaller von restorff, bizare imagery, encoding specificity and adaptive memory effects
8
Q
future/ prospective memory in elders
A
- poorer
- but, better w naturalistic setting and using strategies
- spend less time thinking abt the future and with less detail
9
Q
AMB in elders
A
- more generic, vague, familliar, less specific and recollection based
- dominated by salient landmarks, positivity, and self relevant info
- focused more on semantics than on episodic details
10
Q
metamemory and older adults
A
- poorer source memory
- poorer reality monitoring
- more destination errors
- more cryptomnesia
- increase false fame
- more semantic DRM effects
- more false memories
- more misattribution of positive traits
11
Q
memory and the law and older adults
A
- same misinformation but more confident in it
- poorer eye witness
- more likely to select lures
- inaccurate judgements of learning
- inaccurate FOK
- more hindsight bias
- more memory complaints
12
Q
stereotype threat for older adults memories
A
- older adults are susceptible to language and perception of experiment purpose
- if they think the task is about aging or have been exposed to negative words about aging, it can impair their performance
13
Q
non declarative memory in older adults
A
- forms of implicit learning may be more neurologically robust
- priming, implicit, and procedural skills remain intact
- motor skills stay intact
14
Q
EM in older adults exceptions to the overall decline
A
- the amount of info decline but the kind of info remains stable
-preserved abilities to update understanding using mental models
15
Q
semantic memories in older adults
A
- greater reliance on semantics, schemas and scripts
- semantic networks remain intact (priming effects the same)
- broader world knowledge to draw upon
- better able to forget or modify semantic understandings
16
Q
why are older adults bad w stereotypes
A
- may be unintentional, occurs even when they are trying to egalitarian (yeah right)
- bc they have generalized world knowledge and failures of inhibition (cannot suppress unwanted info)
17
Q
metamemory and positive changes in old ppl
A
- generally superior semantic memories
- awareness of own knowledge
- region of proximal learning
- good source memory if emotional
- mood congruency
- positivity bias
18
Q
a decline in emotional influences on memory can be attributed to weakened connections between ____ and ___
A
amygdala and hippocampus
19
Q
alzheimers disease psychical symptoms
A
- severe degration of structure and function of cortex
- hallmark physical symptoms: fewer neuron and neural connections (frontal/temp), amyloid plaques (old tissue) that crowd neurons/microglia, neurofibrillary tangles impeding communication, and decreased acetylcholine production
20
Q
alzheimers cognitive symptoms
A
- degradation on organization of memory and control of flow of thoughts:
- Wm probs, executive control failure
- overwhelmed under dual task conditions
- loss of EMs
- can have loss of self/identity
- issues w encoding more than retrieval
- SM intact but then lost
- some IM preserved
21
Q
changes in functional brain activity alzheimers
A
- reduced funstional activation in prefrontal cortex in AD relative to controls
- abnormal connectivity between entorhinal cortex, hippocampus, and PCC
22
Q
alzheimers preconditions
A
- genetic component (25-50% chance if family members have AD)
- head trauma
- long term sustained depression
23
Q
alzheimers protective factors
A
- estrogen and anti-oxidant exposure
- conditions associated w body inflammation like arthritis
24
Q
parkinsons disease and dementia
A
- onsets around age 50
- Damage to or loss of neurons in the basal ganglia and the substantia nigra
-disruption in
dopamine processing - Leads initially to deficits in coordination
of movement. Later, cognitive and
emotional regulation issues - Issues with visuospatial sketchpad, episodic buffer,
central executive, and spatial memory, etc - Temporal gradient, but subtler than Alzheimer’s
- Poor memory for temporal order of information
25
Huntingtons disease and dementia
- around 40, most pass by 60
- attacks basal ganglia
- Issues with central executive
- Dual-task difficulty
- Preserved forgetting rates and recognition
- Impaired recall, and more trouble with non-
verbal information than Parkinson's
- No temporal gradient, suggesting that the
issue is with retrieval, not encoding
26
MS and dementia
- Mostly muscle control, but also affects memory
- Atrophy in CA1 subfield of hippocampus and frontal lobes
- Impacts primarily in short-term memory
- Problems in both creating and retrieving memory
- More impairment in explicit and autobiographical than implicit
