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Full-Text Articles in Psychology
Personality Pathology And Cognitive Aging: The Role Of Interpersonal Stress, Patrick Joseph Cruitt
Personality Pathology And Cognitive Aging: The Role Of Interpersonal Stress, Patrick Joseph Cruitt
Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Research on the relationship between normal-range personality and cognitive aging has demonstrated consistent, but modest, effects. The current investigation seeks to increase our understanding of unhealthy cognitive aging by examining the maladaptive extremes of personality. Borderline and avoidant personality disorder (PD), but not obsessive-compulsive PD, were hypothesized to show prospective associations with cognitive aging. Interpersonal stress was expected to mediate these relationships. The current investigation tested these hypotheses in two longitudinal studies of older adulthood: the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center cohort (ADRC, N = 434, Mage = 69.95, 56% women) and the St. Louis Personality and Aging Network study (SPAN, …
Testing The Common-Mechanisms Theory Of False Hearing And False Memory: The Roles Of Executive Functioning And Inhibitory Control, Eric Failes
Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Recent studies have shown that older adults are more susceptible to context-based misperceptions in hearing than are younger adults, a phenomenon that has been referred to as false hearing (Rogers et al., 2012; Sommers et al., 2015). The authors of these studies have noted similarities between false hearing and false memories (Jacoby et al., 2005), suggesting that the two phenomena may arise from similar cognitive mechanisms. The present dissertation project investigated similarities between false hearing and false memories. In Experiment 1, I directly compared susceptibility to false hearing and false memories in younger and older adults. I then investigated two …
Exploring The Mechanisms That Underlie The Benefits Of Retrieval Practice In Younger And Older Adults, Ruth A. Shaffer
Exploring The Mechanisms That Underlie The Benefits Of Retrieval Practice In Younger And Older Adults, Ruth A. Shaffer
Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The testing effect—or the benefit of retrieval practice to later memory—is often considered to be a recollection-related phenomenon. However, recent work (Shaffer & McDermott, 2020) has observed a benefit of testing to both recollection and familiarity processing on both immediate and delayed final tests. Further, although aging populations show marked declines in recollection, older and younger adults often benefit from testing to a similar degree (Meyer & Logan, 2013). This finding suggests that the testing effect in older adults may function via relatively preserved familiarity and lends further support to the notion that the testing effect does not function solely …
Quality Of Sleep, Stress, And Exercise: Effects Of Environmental And Lifestyle Factors On Spatial Navigation In Older Adults, Hannah Maybrier
Quality Of Sleep, Stress, And Exercise: Effects Of Environmental And Lifestyle Factors On Spatial Navigation In Older Adults, Hannah Maybrier
Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Introduction: With increasing age, many adults experience reduced spatial navigation ability, with the most prominent reductions in tasks dependent on the hippocampus. Hippocampal dysfunction may be linked to age-related increases in sleep fragmentation, which results in reduced neurogenesis and long-term potentiation. This project aims to determine if age-related reductions in hippocampal-dependent navigation ability and strategy selection are mediated by impaired sleep. Further, we propose that the effects of sleep on navigation are moderated by psychological stress and physical activity. Methods: 36 older (m: 70, sd: 7) and 33 younger (m: 20, sd: 1.5) adults recorded one week of sleep via …
How Specific Is Domain-Specific Slowing? Evidence For A General Form Of A Domain-Specific Mechanism, Cynthia C. Flores
How Specific Is Domain-Specific Slowing? Evidence For A General Form Of A Domain-Specific Mechanism, Cynthia C. Flores
Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Faces are special not just because our ability to quickly and accurately process faces is integral for social functioning throughout our lives, but also because faces are considered a unique class of visual stimuli (i.e., faces rely more on holistic processing than objects and there exist specialized, face-specific regions in the brain). Behavioral and neuropsychological research point to face processing as dissociable from other kinds of visuospatial processing. Although there is evidence that neural specificity for faces is retained in older adults, there is also evidence that age-related impairments are greater in face processing, relative to object processing. Using a …
Dissociable Effects Of Monetary, Liquid, And Social Incentives On Motivation Across The Adult Life Span, Jennifer Crawford
Dissociable Effects Of Monetary, Liquid, And Social Incentives On Motivation Across The Adult Life Span, Jennifer Crawford
Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Humans are social creatures and, as such, can be motivated by aspects of social life, like approval from others, to guide decision-making in everyday life. Indeed, a common view in the aging literature is that older adults have a stronger orientation towards socioemotional goals or incentives, relative to other incentive modalities, like money, because of changing motivational priorities in older adulthood. In prior work, however, we found that older adults actually showed greater effects of monetary relative to primary (liquid) incentives, suggesting alternative interpretations of impaired motivational integration and/or slower adaptation to incentive conditions. The current study tested these alternatives, …
Exercise Engagement And Longitudinal Change In Alzheimer's Disease Biomarkers, Regional Brain Structure, And Cognitive Functioning, Marta Stojanovic
Exercise Engagement And Longitudinal Change In Alzheimer's Disease Biomarkers, Regional Brain Structure, And Cognitive Functioning, Marta Stojanovic
Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations
No abstract provided.
The Consequences Of Processing Of Goal-Irrelevant Information During The Stroop Task In Younger And Older Adults, Jessica Nicosia
The Consequences Of Processing Of Goal-Irrelevant Information During The Stroop Task In Younger And Older Adults, Jessica Nicosia
Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Recent evidence from memory paradigms indicates that older adults can sometimes benefit more from processing goal-irrelevant information than younger adults, however these studies have often failed to simultaneously provide evidence of age-related control deficits. In the present experiments, participants initially studied a list of words. They then received a color-naming Stroop task where neutral words were either previously studied or new words. Across three experiments, participants were given different types of memory tests to examine the lingering effects of the neutral words during color-naming in younger and older adults. The results from all three experiments (including an attempted replication study) …
Just Don't Do It!: A Comparison Of Strategies For Reducing Commission Errors In Older And Younger Adults, Emily Streeper
Just Don't Do It!: A Comparison Of Strategies For Reducing Commission Errors In Older And Younger Adults, Emily Streeper
Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Prospective memory (PM) commission errors occur when an individual erroneously repeats an intention that is finished and therefore no longer relevant (e.g., accidentally taking a medication one no longer needs to take). Commission errors have been observed in younger and older adults with age exacerbating commission error risk in select conditions. Only one prior study has used the finished paradigm to investigate the use of explicit strategies to reduce commission error rates in older adults. Bugg, Scullin, and Rauvola (2016) found that forgetting practice, an experience-based strategy, minimized commission errors to floor levels but a preparation-based strategy was ineffective. The …
Through The Ear, To The Brain: How Cognitive Aging Impacts Veridical And False Hearing In The Presence Of Misleading Context, Eric Failes
Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations
A consistent finding in the literature (Benichov, Cox, Tun, & Wingfield, 2012; Dubno, Ahlstrom, & Horwitz, 2000; Hutchinson, 1989; Nittrouer & Boothroyd, 1990; Pichora-Fuller, Schneider & Daneman, 1995; Rogers, Jacoby, & Sommers, 2012; Sommers & Danielson, 1999; Wingfield, Aberdeen, & Stine, 1991) is that spoken word identification improves for both older and younger adults following the addition of a meaningful semantic context, but the improvements are typically greater for older adults. However, more recent findings (Jacoby, Rogers, Bishara, & Shimizu, 2012; Rogers, Jacoby, & Sommers, 2012) suggest that, especially under less favorable perceptual conditions, the increased benefits of semantic context …
Process Dissociation Analyses Of Memory Changes In Healthy Aging, Preclinical, And Very Mild Alzheimer Disease: Evidence For Isolated Recollection Deficits, Peter R. Millar
Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Recollection and familiarity are independent processes that contribute to memory performance. Recollection is dependent on attentional control, which breaks down in early-stage Alzheimer disease (AD), whereas familiarity is independent of attention. The present study examines the sensitivity of recollection estimates based on Jacoby’s (1991) process dissociation procedure to AD-related biomarkers in a large sample of well-characterized cognitively normal older adults (N = 519) and the extent to which recollection discriminates these individuals from individuals with very mild symptomatic AD (N = 64). Participants studied word pairs, e.g., “knee bone,” then completed a primed, explicit, cued fragment-completion memory task, e.g., “knee …
Decision Making In Older Adults: A Comparison Of Delay And Probability Discounting Across, Ariana Vanderveldt
Decision Making In Older Adults: A Comparison Of Delay And Probability Discounting Across, Ariana Vanderveldt
Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The value of an outcome is affected both by the delay until its receipt (delay discounting) and by the likelihood of its receipt (probability discounting). The discounting framework has greatly aided in modeling and understanding decision-making, particularly in the areas of impulsivity, but these findings have overwhelmingly been based on research with young adults. In three experiments, the current study extended the discounting framework by examining choice by older adults. Experiments 1 and 2 found that both young and older adults discounted delayed outcomes and probabilistic outcomes and that their choices were well-described by the same hyperboloid model. Both young …
Dynamic Adjustments Of Cognitive Control In Healthy Aging: A Diffusion Model Analysis, Andrew Jacob Aschenbrenner
Dynamic Adjustments Of Cognitive Control In Healthy Aging: A Diffusion Model Analysis, Andrew Jacob Aschenbrenner
Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The control of attention over salient yet irrelevant information is a critical component of goal-directed behavior. Compared to younger adults, older adults often produce larger interference effects in tasks which tap selective attention, a deficit that has typically been viewed as reflecting an age-related decline in attentional control processes. Interference in distinct, attentionally demanding tasks has produced different influences on the characteristics of underlying response time distributions leading to the assumption of different control mechanisms operating across various paradigms. More recently, accumulating research has shown that the magnitude of observed interference can be critically modulated by the congruency of the …
The Interaction Of Crystallized And Fluid Abilities In Aging And Speech Perception, Avanti Dey
The Interaction Of Crystallized And Fluid Abilities In Aging And Speech Perception, Avanti Dey
Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations
In a series of studies, I examined the degree to which fluid and crystallized abilities contribute to and interact during speech perception. During the aging process, crystallized abilities (e.g., linguistic and word knowledge) are largely preserved, while fluid abilities involved in the online manipulation of information (e.g., working memory and inhibitory control) decline with age. Importantly, these two components are critical for successful speech perception and comprehension. While prior research has proposed that older adults rely on crystallized knowledge to compensate for cognitive deficits in difficult listening conditions, this hypothesis has not been directly tested. Younger and older adults completed …
The Influence Of Word Frequency And Aging On Lexical Access, Emily Rebecca Cohen-Shikora
The Influence Of Word Frequency And Aging On Lexical Access, Emily Rebecca Cohen-Shikora
Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Visual word recognition has been a central area of psychological inquiry over the past century. The current dissertation examines how visual word recognition changes as a function of age by focusing on the influence of word frequency, or how commonly a word is encountered. Word frequency is arguably the strongest predictor of visual word recognition performance across a variety of language tasks, and the most influential factor in models of language processing. All models of visual word recognition include a strong role for word frequency but often assume different underlying mechanisms, which produce differing predictions for age changes. Although there …
Variable Semantic Input And Novel First-Language Vocabulary Learning, Nichole Runge
Variable Semantic Input And Novel First-Language Vocabulary Learning, Nichole Runge
Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Vocabulary learning involves mapping a word form to a semantic meaning. An individual asked to learn the Spanish word for “apple,” for example, must map a new word form (manzana) onto the appropriate semantic representation. Previous studies have found that acoustic variability of word forms can improve second language vocabulary acquisition (Barcroft & Sommers, 2005; Sommers & Barcroft, 2007). The current experiments investigated whether variable semantic input could have a similar beneficial effect on first language vocabulary learning. Participants learned low-frequency English vocabulary words and their definitions. Half of the words were shown with the same verbatim definition …
Effects Of An Interdisciplinary Gerontology Course On First-Year Undergraduate Students, Christine Caroline Merz
Effects Of An Interdisciplinary Gerontology Course On First-Year Undergraduate Students, Christine Caroline Merz
Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This study evaluated the impact of an interdisciplinary course on aging designed to improve attitudes toward older adults and aging, and generate interest in aging-related careers. Main outcomes included knowledge of older adults and aging, attitudes toward older adults and aging, and anxiety about personal aging. Participants included first-year undergraduate students enrolled in the course (curricular intervention group) and first-year undergraduate students not enrolled in the course (control group). Data were collected at the beginning and end of one semester. At the end of the semester curricular intervention students had increased in their knowledge about aging and showed more positive …
The Effect Of Age-Related Declines In Inhibitory Control On Audiovisual Speech Intelligibility, Avanti Dey
The Effect Of Age-Related Declines In Inhibitory Control On Audiovisual Speech Intelligibility, Avanti Dey
All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)
Audiovisual: AV) speech perception is perception in which both auditory and visual information is available in order to understand a talker, compared to an auditory signal alone, during face-to-face communication. This form of communication yields significantly higher word recognition performance as compared to either sensory modality alone, constituting a general AV advantage for speech perception. Despite an overall AV advantage, older adults seem to receive less benefit from this bimodal presentation than do younger adults. However, there is evidence to suggest that not all age-related deficits in AV speech perception are of a sensory nature, but are also influenced by …
An Investigation Into Peripersonal Space Representations In Older Adults, Emily K. Bloesch
An Investigation Into Peripersonal Space Representations In Older Adults, Emily K. Bloesch
Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Peripersonal space is the space immediately surrounding one's body. This space is believed to have a unique representation in order to facilitate successful interaction with the surrounding environment. Supporting this theory, there are consistent findings of changes in cognition within as compared to beyond peripersonal space, including differences in visual attention and perception. However, research on peripersonal space in healthy populations has largely focused on young adults. Representations of peripersonal space take place in multimodal brain regions, areas that show structural and functional changes during senescence. Because of this, there is reason to suspect that older adults represent peripersonal space …
Brain Structure In Older Adult Siblings, Nathaniel Lucena
Brain Structure In Older Adult Siblings, Nathaniel Lucena
All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)
Considerable variability exists in patterns of brain aging within and across individuals. Quantifying familial contributions to brain structure in late life may help us understand this variability. We estimated heritability of gray and white matter volumes and cortical thickness in a sample of older adult full siblings: 2-4 individuals per pedigree; N = 75). Estimation of heritability was based on computation of intraclass correlations. Heritability estimates were higher for total cortical thickness compared to volumes. There was no evidence of overall laterality in heritability estimates, or differences between primary sensory and association regions. There was a tendency for lower estimates …
Sensory And Cognitive Declines In Older Adults: A Longitudinal Study, Melanie Storm Bauer
Sensory And Cognitive Declines In Older Adults: A Longitudinal Study, Melanie Storm Bauer
All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)
In a recent cross-sectional study, as has been found in numerous previous studies, Sommers et al.: 2011) found that age-related declines in hearing, as assessed by pure-tone thresholds, begin around age 20 and continue across the lifespan. In another article published from the same cross-sectional dataset, Hale et al.: 2011) found that working memory ability also begins declining around age 20 and continues throughout life. The present study is a longitudinal follow-up of these two studies in which a sub-sample of older adults: ≥65 years old at the time of original testing approximately four years ago) were re-tested on sensory …