Psych Of Aging Test 2

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Overview of Info Processing Model

Back 1

- Information enters the system and is transformed, coded, and stored in various ways
- Three assumptions of the information-processing approach
-People are active participants in the process
-Both quantitative and qualitative aspects of performance can be examined
-Information is processed through a series of hypothetical stages or stores

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•Model of Memory

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– memory goes through a series of stages from input to retrieval
– each stage has different capacities and employs different processing operations

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• Sensory Memory

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• First step in the model
• Retains info just long enough to process it
• Characteristics
– short duration/limited capacity
– Large amounts; rapidly
– Memory details are dependent on how much attention is given to the stimuli.
– If attention is given, then the info is passed to the next stage of memory.
– Age differences are not typically found at this stage; however, they do begin to appear when attentional processes are applied to sensory memory.

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– Which areas show evidence of age differences in the aspects of processing?

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• Early stages
• Secondary memory
• Long term memory

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Speed of Processing

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• How quickly and efficiently these early steps in information processing are completed
– Slowing of processing is task-specific.

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Processing Resources

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• The amount of attention one has to apply to a particular situation
– There have been a number of alternative ways of examining a process resource hypothesis.
• Two of those are:
– Inhibitory loss - older adults have reduced processing resources due to greater difficulty inhibiting the processing of irrelevant information.
– Attentional loss – older adults don’t do as well as younger adults when performing difficult tasks simultaneously
– As we get older, our pool of mental resources declines.
– As a result, demanding situations result in poorer performance because we have less to draw upon

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• Selective Attention

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– Deals with how we choose the information we will process beyond sensory memory .
– With simple stimuli, older and younger adults perform the same
– As the stimuli become more complex, or there are more potential choices, age differences begin to appear.

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Divided Attention

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• This is the ability to attend to two things at once.
• On easy tasks, there are no age differences
• On difficult tasks, age differences appear
• Can be improved with practice
– Older adults benefit more from practice

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Sustained Attention

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• Vigilance - ability to sustain attention for a long time
• Two components, performance and decrement, seem to behave differently
• Older adults may not perform at the same level as the younger adults, but their decline follows the same slope

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Inhibitory loss

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• Theory: Older persons have task-irrelevant thoughts that interfere with processing.
• Other research shows inhibition is not universal across all aspects of stimulation.
• Certain strategies can compensate for irrelevant information interference.
• Is there a purpose for older persons attending to irrelevant information?
• The Stroop Task
• Used to measure attention
• Also used to measure inhibitory processes between young and old adults.
• Reading is a highly practiced skill
– It becomes obligatory to read a word you encounter
• Color naming is a less practiced skill
– It takes effort to name colors
• The Stroop task makes those processes compete.

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Stroop Task

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Used to measure attention
Used to measure inhibitory processes between young and old adults. Makes taks of color naming and reading compete.

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Working Memory

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Active processes and structures involved in holding information in mind. Holding this information, in conjuction with incoming info to solve a problem, make a decision, learn new information....
Widespread age differences, with magnitude increasing with task complexity.Plays major role in encoding, storage and retrieval.
Has small capacity - like juggler.

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Salthouse Belief in working memory

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Working memory is the key to understanding age differences in memory. Argue that the loss of some ability to hold items in working memory may limit older adults overall cognitive functioning. Based on the imp. role that working memory plays on info. processing.

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Automatic Processing

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Processing occurs automatically. Places minimal demand on attentional capacity. Some don't benefit from practice, others learned through experience and practice.Gets into system without us being aware of it.
Doesn't produce significant age differences in processing info.

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Effortful Processing

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Processing that requires effort. Requires all of the available attentional capacity. Most of the tasks involve deliberate memory, like learning words on a list.
Age differences tend to occur.

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Semantic Memory

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Long term memory. learning and remembering the meaning of words and concepts that are not tied to specific occurences of events in time. Ex. Knowing def of words. Increases from ages 35-55 years of age and then levels off.
It does not tax working memory. Hard to exercise if not practiced regularly.

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Episodic Memory

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General class of memory having to do with the conscious recollection of info from a specific event or point in time. Widespread age differences on these tasks. Stays stable until 55-60, then starts to decline.

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Autobiographical Memory

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Remembering information and events from our own life. Form of episodic memory. Semantic aspect of it is more easily remembered by adults.

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Flashbulb Memories

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Vivid memories of very personal or emotional events..
Weddings
Sept 11

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Source Memory

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ability to remember the source of a familiar event as well as the ability to determine if an event was imagined or actually experienced.

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Prospective Memory

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Remembering to perform a planned action in the future. Ex. Remembering to take meds.
Time based tasks ( remembering to press button every 8 min ) , showed more age differences. Whether there are age differences is very complex, depends on type of task, cues, and what is being measured.

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Age Differences - Sensory Memory

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No age diff. usually found
Begin to apply when attention is paid to sensory memory.

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Age Differences -Processing Speed

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Age Related slowing is specific to level of processing and specific tasks.

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Age Differences - Inhibition loss -

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Older adults have issues filtering out information that isn't relevant.

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Age Differences - Selective Attn

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As stimuli becomes more complex, or more choices, age diff. begin to appear.

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Age Differences - Divided Attn

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Appear with more diff. tasks.

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Age Differences - Sustained attention

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Older don't perform as good as younger but decline follows same slope.

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Age Differences in Encoding vs. Retrieval

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Research suggests age-related decrements in encoding, not in storage
Pet scans show age difference in encoding
Age-related decrements have been found and may be caused by difficulty in the abilitiy to make connections with incoming info.

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Define Intelligence

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Intelligence in Everyday Life
Experts and laypeople agree on 3 clusters of intelligence
problem-solving ability,
verbal ability, and
social competence
Motivation, intellectual effort, and reading are important indicators of intelligence behaviors for all people

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Theories of Intelligence

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Emphasize four components
A life-span view
1. multidimensionality
2. multidirectionality
3. plasticity
4. interindividual variability

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two approaches to studying intelligence

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(1) Psychometric approach – measures intelligence as performance on standardized tests.
(2) Cognitive-structural approach – more concerned with the ways in which people conceptualize and solve problems than with scores on tests.

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Psychometric Approach

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The psychometric approach focuses on whether answers to questions are correct, and on how these answers relate to each other

Intelligence is often viewed as a hierarchy of skills, where each level in the hierarchy organizes abilities at the next lower level

(1)WORD FLUENCY
(2)TESTS
(3)PRIMARY MENTAL ABILITIES.
(4)SECONDARY MENTAL ABILITIES

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Primary Mental Abilities

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Existence of Several independent intellectual abilities, each indicated by different combinations of intelligence tests.
Thurstone originally identified 5 primary mental abilities
-numerical facility
-word fluency
-verbal meaning
-inductive reasoning
-spatial orientation
Schaie added perceptual speed and verbal memory.
Today 25 primary abilities have been identified

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Age-Related Changes In Primary Abilities

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o People tend to improve on primary abilities until late 30s or early 40s
o Scores stabilize until the mid-50s or early 60s
o By late 60s consistent declines are seen
o Nearly everyone shows a decline in one ability but few show decline on four or five abilities.

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Secondary Mental Abilities

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Are broad-ranging skills that reflect clusters of several primary mental abilities
At least six secondary mental abilities have been found (see table 7.1)

Fluid intelligence:
Crystallized intelligence:
Visual Organization:
Auditory Organization:
Short-term acquisition and retrieval:
Long-term storage and retrieval:

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Age-related changes in secondary mental abilities

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 Crystallized intelligence does not decline throughout adulthood.
 Further as age increases, fluid intelligence decreases and crystallized intelligence improves.

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Crystallized Intelligence

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knowledge that you have acquired through life experience and education in a particular culture. Breath of knowledge, comprehension of communication, judgement, and sophistication with info. Ex. Remembering historical facts, definitions.

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Fluid Intelligence

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the abilities that make you an adaptive and flexible thinker, that allow you to draw inferences, and that enable you to understand the relations among concepts independent of acquired knowledge and experience. ex. mazes, puzzles...

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Qualitative diff. in adults thinking - Piaget

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Intellectual development is adaptation through activity.
Basic concepts:
Assmilation: Use of currently available knowledge to make sense out of incoming information.
Accommodation: Changing one’s thoughts to make it a better approximation of the world of experience.

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Denney’s model of unexercised and optimally exercised abilities

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Unexercised ability: the ability of a normal, healthy adult would exhibit without practice or training ex: fluid intelligence
Optimally excercised ability: the ability a normal, healthy adult would demonstrate under the best conditions of training and practice
Ex: crystallized intelligence

Both show increase until late adolescence or early adulthood and decline after.

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Expertise

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Is generally viewed as having a wealth of experience and knowledge about some topic, being able to use novel approaches to solve problems, or being highly practiced.


Older adults can often compensate for declines in some abilities by becoming experts, which allows them to anticipate what’s going to be required on a task.

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Encapsulation

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refers to the idea that the process of thinking like attention, memory, and logical reasoning, become connected to the products of thinking ex. Attention and memory becomes more connected to the products of thinking ex. Knowledge about a topic.

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Wisdom

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Basic Criteria – factual and procedural knowledge
Metalevel Criteria – Lifespan contextualism, value relativism, awareness and management of uncertainty.


Involves practical knowledge
Is given altruistically
Involves psychological insights
Based on life experience

Implicit conceptions of wisdom are widely shared within a culture and include:
Exceptional levels of functioning
A dynamic balance between intellect, emotion, and motivation
A high degree of personal and interpersonal competence
Good intentions

Baltes and colleagues specify the content of wisdom in terms of the fundamental pragmatics of life:
Expertise
Broad abilities
Understanding how life problems change
Fitting the response with the problem
Realizing that life problems are often ambiguous