PSYC31H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 8: Reduced Affect Display, Impulsivity, Headache
Document Summary
Normal cognitive aging: some age-related cognitive decline begins in healthy adults when they are in their 20s and 30s, although most age change research focuses on adults 60+, most studies use a cross-sectional design comparing different age groups. Attentional functions in aging: the effects of age on attentional efficiency vary with the complexity of the task or situation. Thus simple span tends to remain essentially intact into the 80s. Implicit memory appears to be relatively preserved with aging, particularly for perceptual priming tasks. It was found that age played a greater role in animal naming than in phonemic fluency. Animal fluency declined significantly faster than letter fluency. Education also influences performance on category fluency tasks: confrontation naming studies in which subjects are asked to name on sight real or pictured objects have also produced conflicting findings. Performance may improve or remain stable up until age 70 and decline thereafter.
