PSY 3128 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Driving Simulator, Long-Term Memory, Mental Chronometry
5 Jun 2018
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Cognitive Aging (Ch. 6/7 Lecture)
Aging does not lead to universal decline.
- Some cognitive processes appear to decline in aging
- Others remain relatively intact
- Some may improve
- Our challenge is to figure out what changes in whom, where, when, how, why, and
where is the line between normal and abnormal aging.
Hebb (on himself, n = 1)
The things he noticed changing as he grew older:
(1) Memory Retrieval: failure to remember having made a note in a journal article.
(2) Language: word finding
(3) Persistence of irrelevant thoughts: repetition of stores, songs, poems
(4) Motivation: diminished drive intellect work (stemming from diminished mental capacity)
Both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies show that verbal knowledge increases with age
(figure). Everything else decreases: working memory, short term memory, long term memory,
speed of processing.
Self-selecting group of people who continue to play video games. Thompson (2014): Over the hill
at 24: Persistent age related cognitive motor decline in reaction times in ecologically valid video
game.
- If something changed in the game how quickly can you react – this was measured.
- You respond quickly until you are 24.
However, performance is typically measured by motor, which could slow down but is this different
or the same from cognitive slowing? We make inferences about cognition surrounding motor tasks.
What if slowing is because you are just being more careful or not as down to take risk. Slowing
down isn’t necessarily a bad thing if it is heling you be more careful.
Cognitive-Motor Decline: are we slowing down mentally or just physically, or both? This is
impeding on our ability to properly conduct research and we need to find methods that do not use
motor control to measure cognition.
Cognitive methods use two main dependent variables:
i. Speed of time response, reaction time (RT): button press to detect flash of light, time
taken to find Waldo, time taken to say name when shown a famous face. Usually faster
responses, ie. Shorter time score.
ii. Accuracy: the number of items recalled on a memory test, the number of blue dots
found on a display, number of errors on a math test, greater accuracy and fewer errors
it better
Speed-Accuracy Trade Off: memory test after studying 20 items. Subject #2 had higher recall but
had the slowest reaction time.
Many paradigms used for older people require us to take both accuracy and RT into account to
interpret performance.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Some cognitive processes appear to decline in aging. Our challenge is to figure out what changes in whom, where, when, how, why, and where is the line between normal and abnormal aging. Both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies show that verbal knowledge increases with age (figure). Everything else decreases: working memory, short term memory, long term memory, speed of processing. Self-selecting group of people who continue to play video games. Thompson (2014): over the hill at 24: persistent age related cognitive motor decline in reaction times in ecologically valid video game. If something changed in the game how quickly can you react this was measured. You respond quickly until you are 24. We make inferences about cognition surrounding motor tasks. What if slowing is because you are just being more careful or not as down to take risk. Slowing down isn"t necessarily a bad thing if it is heling you be more careful.
