Lecture 10: Forgetting in Older Adults

• Adults perform worse on tasks using active processing in short-term memory→ Backward digit span, alpha span (remember words in alphabetical order)
• Cognitive Working Memory Training→ WM correlated to general fluid intelligence, if WM is a cognitive primitive then training it should improve range of functions
• Online brain training programs are available if you pay
• Jaeggi et al, 2008→ Trained on difficult WM task (dual n-back) for different amount of days, training group improved on task and standardized tests for general fluid intelligence → which was a significant increase after 17 days
• WM training controversy→ Studies showing improvement aren’t well designed and lack controls
• Shipstead et al, 2012→ Far transfer not reliably demonstrated apart from on trained task
• Melby-Lervag and Hulme, 2013→ Meta-analysis, found reliable improvements on trained and near-transfer tasks but no reliable far transfer, durable changes for visual not verbal training
• Melby and Hulme, 2013 and Gathercole et al, 2019→ WM training has possible therapeutic benefits and cognitive enhancement properties
• Gathercole et al, 2019→ Training only works if it involves novel cognitive routines and only transfer if routines are applicable to other tasks
• Procedural memory→ Skills, procedures, preserved in healthy ageing, older adults are sometime impaired at acquiring new complex motor skills
• Studying skills and procedures→ Participants perform novel task repeatedly over multiple sessions, learnt if there is an improvement in speed
• Skill acquisition→ Breitenstein et al, 1996→ Simple tracking was more accurate in young people but both age groups had same rate of improvement, mirror-reversed tracking had adults being less accurate and with slower improvement
• Episodic memory→ Events, past experiences, impaired with age, less able to specific details, remember more when it is something they have encountered before (source monitoring)
• Remembering who did what→ Kesrten et al, 2008→ Young and older adults watched clips of actors performing a different action→ A opens jar, B staples paper, C puts on headphones
• Kesrten et al, 2008→ Clips included actor repeating action and preforming a different action/novel pairing, older adults had issues distinguishing old and novel pairings but attributing the action to the wrong person
• Eyewitness testimony→ Older adults are less reliable
• Mitchell et al, 2003→ Older adults may be more affected by misinformation, Phase 1( witness video event), Phase 2 (questioned about a fact that didn’t actually happen in the video), Phase 3 (given statements about event and asked where they encountered this information→ in video/in questions/both/neither)
• Mitchell et al, 2003→ Results→ Older adults: remember more events in video that were suggested to them (misattributions), less able to link information to correct source, less confident in correct answers but more confident in incorrect answers, source information (temporal order, modality of info→ video, written) needed for task is impaired with age
• Whitley and Greenberg, 1986→ Witness confidence related to juror’s perceptions