Cognitive Development in Adulthood and Old Age Posada

Cognitive Development in Adulthood and Old Age • • Posada, M. , y de la Fuente, J (2006 ). Memoria y atención. En C. Triadó y F. Villar (coords. ) Psicología de la Vejez. Madrid: Alianza Villar, F. (2006). Inteligencia y sabiduría. En C. Triadó y F. Villar (coords. ) Psicología de la Vejez. Madrid: Alianza

Index 1. Psicometric Focus 1. Methodical Problemas 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Explanations for cognitive decline Successful cognitive aging Information processing Postformal Thought Wisdom Creativity

PSICOMETRIC FOCUS: Methodical problems 1. Investigation design: longitudinal or transverse Selection of subjects 2. Familiarity with the work/objectives 3. Influence of speed 4. Tendency to be cautious: Commission errors and omission errors

PSICOMETRIC FOCUS: Methodical problems 5. Motivational problems 6. The problem of working with means

Psicometric Focus: Investigation Results Transverse Studies * Intelligence clearly diminishes with age: it increases until 20 -30 years, stays stable and later descends in a slow and steady manner * There are differences between abilities: The punctuations in the manipulative scale decrease y in the verbal scale stay the same or decrease more slowly.

Psicometric Focus: Results of transverse studies Free memory (square) or with clues (circle) Vocabulary Figure 1. 1: Measure of 301 adults, living in residencies, en various measures of processing speed, operative memory, free memory y with clues and vocabulary, throughout life. Adapted with the permission of Park and co.

Psicometric Focus: Results of transverse studies Processing Speed Digit-symbol Pattern completion Letter comparison Operative Memory Calculation speed Reading speed Inverse digits

Psicometric Focus: Investigation results Longitudinal Studies * Have not detected decreases earlier than 60 years of age, and some capacities are preserved until 80 years of age. * After 80 -85 years, the decline can put daily functioning at risk. * Some abilities improve * There is possibly a methodological bias

Psicometric Focus: Investigation Results *Different trajectories for the fluid and crystallized intelligence fluida y para la inteligencia cristalizada FLUID depends more on biological factores CRYSTALLIZED more dependent on cultural factors * Loss or terminal decline

Explanations for cognitive decline Hypotheses centered on the Hardware or Structure * Sickness (especially cardiovascular and arthritis) *Hypothesis of speed or peripheral slowing down *Hypothesis of general slowing down * Hypothesis of the reduction of resources: attention, working memory, mental energy…

Explanations for Cognitive Decline Hypothesis centered on Software or System functioning *Hypothesis of the lack of use (current and past intellectual stimulation) *Hypothesis of insufficient strategies * Hypothesis of contextual and generational changes

Successful Cognitive Aging According to Salthouse Accomodation: Tendency to disconnect yourself gradually from activities that supercede your cognitive limitations and to focus on other activities Compensation: The same efficiency is maintained by changing the manner of completing work Reparation: Intervention or training to restore cognitive abilities to a previous level

Successful cognitive aging According to Salthouse Cognitive efficiency can be maintained with strategies that maximize on strong points and minimize on weak points.

Successful Cognitive Aging According to Baltes Cognitive Mechanics Basic cognitive processes Biological and cerebral Results of information processing Cognitive Pragmatics Contextualized capacities Formal and Informal learning

Successful Cognitive Aging According to Baltes Base Reserve: maximum efficiency potential Development reserve: Maximum efficiency potential with help: instrumental or personal PLASTICITY Functional base: habitual functioning The reserve capacity decreases with age, although it only disappears completely with dementia. learning potential Processing information evaluates the Base Reserve and cognitive mechanics maximize the differences not so called upon in daily life

Successful Cognitive Aging Mastery or Being an Expert *Development of abilities and advanced knowledge in a professional activity or field * Better sensibility to aspects relevant to a problem * Better maintenance of information in the MLP * Result of learning and practice * Effectively getting close to problems and absence of transfer * Cognitive functioning is stable in these areas, even though there are other intellectual losses cognitive pragmatics

Successful Cognitive Aging According to Baltes Anteceding conditions: The limit of resources adds an additional adaptive pressure. More pressure comes from the changes associated with the age in plasticity and availability of external and internal resources. Processes: Selection – Identification of fields and direction of the process of change. Restriction of many behaviors and potential goals. Optimization – Better the means directed to the goals that are available. Search of favorable environments. Compensation – Adquire new external and internal means to achieve goals, due to: a)Lost means that were available earlier b)Contexts and adaptive fields have changed Results: Maximization of wins and minimization of losses Successful development or consecution of priority goals Maintaining function Tomado de Villar, F Titularidad. Development is essentially a process of selective adaptation Recuperation of the los of select fields Regulation of loss (reorganization of function in inferior levels)

Information Processing Sensorial Memory Attentional processes Operative Memory Long Term Memory Articulate loop Semantic Memory Executive Center Episodic Memory Visiospatial Memory Non-declarative Memory(procedural) Information Output Declarative Memory

Information Processing: Attention The reduction with age in the limited resource, necessary to process information, would reduce efficiency en cognitive processes. Sustained Attention Not very affected with age. Seniors are less precise en vigilance tests since the beginning. This can diminish due to factors like the discriminability or the duration of stimuli.

Information Processing: Attention Selective Attention The ability to focus on important information without valuing the irrelevant aspects decreases with complex tests. Divided Attention – Change of Attention Deterioration with complex works in divided attention. Equal efficiency as young people, although they are slower, in changing attention. Practice can prevent this. Worse efficiency with inhibitory mechanisms

Information Processing: Memory Some types of memory are affected by old age while others stay intact. Sensorial Memory The majority of studies are about visual iconic memory and indicate that despite changes in vision, the effects of aging are unimportant. It is difficult to evaluate due to the complicated distinction between the role of the senses and that of the sensorial memory.

Information Processing: Memory Short-Term Memory and Operative Memory Short-Term differences exist en experimental situations with tests that accentuate daily situations and in linguistic or visual experiments. Bigger problems when the work is complicated (Operative Memory) enters the game of the executive center (attentional processes) - Diminishment of the Operative memory capacity?

Information Processing: Memory Secondary or Long-Term Memory Explicaciones de las pérdidas (Light, 1991 en Pousada y de la Fuente, 2006) * Codification: Have not found empirical evidence of the idea that seniors use a more superficial process than younger people. * Recuperation: Seniors show more difficulties en some works (word recall) and are similar in others (implicit memory, recognition, recall with clues) the information is available (equal capacity of *storage) but not accessible.

Information Processing: Memory Episodic Memory * Empirical evidence of an important deterioration after 30 -40 years > Short-Term Memory, procedural or semantic * Few differences in the control of reality * The same in the way the fluid intelligence manages new information: the events are unpredictable. Impossible to use routines or learned schemes to code them. * The deficits are reduced with contextual helping information in the codification and recuperation.

Information Processing: Memory Semantic Memory * Memory of dissociated facts of when and where. * Scarce deterioriation with age, although there are some deficits: faults in finding words and forgetting names. * Compensate these deficits with a better accumulated knowledge. • Importance of the specificity of the material to remember: episodic= specificity semantic= no specificity * Forgetting the source

Information Processing: Memory Prospective Memory * Remember to carry out planned actions * Better results with older people in daily situations (More motivated? Better strategies? ) *In the lab: * Older people better with external cues *Younger better with internal cues

Information Processing: Memory Other Memories Procedural Memory Not affected with age Remote Memory Episodic or semantic? The remember developed facts well, and from the period of 10 30 years of age. They remember autobiographical and remote public facts wors Implicit and Explicit Memory Explicit deteriorates more

Information Processing: Memory Longitudinal Studies (Victoria y Betula) Semantic Memory Worsens with age. Young generations have worse efficiency, which can hide the decline with age. The differences between seniors and youth are due to education level, not to age. Episodic Memory Worse memory of names, faces and words, but not of texts. Implicit Memory preserved Prospective Memory: Memory Worsens with age

Information Processing: Memory Longitudinal Studies Decrease in Episodic Memory Prospective Memory Preserve the capacities of Divided Attention

Information Processing: Memory CONCLUSIONS Ø Changes related to age exist in memory and attention Ø MULTIDIRECCIONALITY: stability and decline that increase after 75 years ØImportant INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

Information Processing: Role of education Lower education level Faster memory deterioration and lower verbal abilities EDUCATION MEMORY SOCIO-EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE HEALTHY HABITS

Information Processing: Role of education Cognitive Reserve * Different neuronal circuits participate en the execution of the same work with or without education. *This is why dementia is detected later. *Formal education is less important than rich cognitive experience.

Models of stages: Postformal Thought * Criticisms of postformal thought as a goal of development Decrements with age in the capacity to resolve formal work. Formal works do not relate to daily problems. Ignorance of contextual and emotional aspects.

Models of Stages: Postformal Thought Caracteristics of postformal thought Surges in the middle age with experience Qualitatively different from formal: integrates logical and analitical reasoning with intuition There is no uniform conception of postformal though More interpretive and relativistic Multicausality and multiple solutions

Models of Stages: Postformal Thought Caracteristics of postformal thought Admits contradiction as a basic aspect of reality Dialectic reasoning: capacity to integrate contradictory information Finds new problems Is pragmatic and permits better resolving social dilemmas Find the key elements of an ambiguous and poorly-defined problem

Wisdom • Forgotten and barely studied aspect of development • Exceptional comprehension based in experience (cognitive pragmatics) • Mastery en pragmatic themes of life (planning, control, vital or sensorial revision) • Related to age • Erikson (cognitive development – socio-emotional development)

Wisdom Criteria (Baltes) 1. Extensive declarative knowledge about life (know what) 2. Extensive practical knowledge about life (know how) 3. Understanding the life as a collection of interrelated contexts and changes throughout life 4. Cultural relativism although there are universal values 5. Metaknowledge (fallibility, relativism, uncertainty)

Wisdom Responsible Factors 1. Context and favorable environments/experiences (cultural level, profession as an educator or directing others, …) 2. Experience in planning, management and vital revision as a resolution of problems, to be a mentor or advisor, motivation for human themes or an impulse to better and personal excellence 3. Personal disposition like creativity, intelligence, flexibility, open to new experiences

Wisdom Evaluated with moral dilemmas like the following: “A good friend calls and says they are going to commit suicide: What should you do and take into account? ” Only 5% of people appear wise. This percentage is maintained through generations (perhaps you are wise en aspects relative to your generation and moment in life) The number of wise answers increases with clinical psychologists or when they are resolved en groups.

Wisdom Criticism of the Baltes Model and the Vision of Ardelt Baltes is too cognitive, 3 components are necessary 1. Cognitive component similar to that of Baltes 2. Reflexive component – to transcend your own point of view y take others into account, this requires selfconsciousness 3. Affective component or to sympathize and love others, and to want common wellbeing - Similar to Erikson’s idea of wisdom of integriy – related with self-esteem and wellbeing

Creativity • Divergent thought – alternate solutions • Reaches the best level between 35 -45 years • Different curves in distinct areas: • Math, physics, poetry at 20 years • Philosophy , history, literature at 50 years * The song of the poet (El canto de cisne)