Overcoming age differences in memory retrieval by reducing stereotype threat.

Very little is known about whether and how socioemotional factors influence age differences in associative memory. Here, we tested the hypothesis that reducing the threat induced by age-based stereotypes can reduce age differences in learning performance and strategy. Using an associative learning task, we replicated the classic finding of age differences under a high-threat condition: older adults had longer reaction times than younger adults and were much more reluctant to use memory retrieval. However, age differences were greatly diminished under a low-threat condition. These findings demonstrate that memory retrieval is an ability not entirely lost as individuals age because merely reducing stereotype threat helped restoring it. We conclude that socioemotional factors, such as stereotype threat, should be considered when evaluating younger and older adults' memory performance.

Exploration of visual factors in the disgust-anger confusion: the importance of the mouth.

According to the perceptual-attentional limitations hypothesis, the confusion between expressions of disgust and anger may be due to the difficulty in perceptually distinguishing the two, or insufficient attention to their distinctive cues. The objective of the current study was to test this hypothesis as an explanation for the confusion between expressions of disgust and anger in adults using eye-movements. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to identify each emotion in 96 trials composed of prototypes of anger and prototypes of disgust. In Experiment 2, fixation points oriented participants' attention toward the eyes, the nose, or the mouth of each prototype. Results revealed that disgust was less accurately recognised than anger (Experiment 1 and 2), especially when the mouth was open (Experiment 1 and 2), and even when attention was oriented toward the distinctive features of disgust (Experiment 2). Additionally, when attention was oriented toward certain zones, the eyes (which contain characteristics of anger) had the longest dwell times, followed by the nose (which contains characteristics of disgust; Experiment 2). Thus, although participants may attend to the distinguishing features of disgust and anger, these may not aid them in accurately recognising each prototype.

Ebbinghaus visual illusion: no robust influence on novice golf-putting performance.

Do visual illusions reliably improve sports performance? To address this issue, we used procedures inspired by Witt et al. (Psychol Sci 23:397-399, 2012) seminal study, which reported that putting on a miniature golf course was positively influenced by an increase in apparent hole size induced by the Ebbinghaus visual illusion. Because Witt et al.'s motor task-putting golf balls toward a hole from the distance of 3.5 m-was impossible for participants who were novices in golf (Experiment 1a), we decided to shorten the putting distance (i.e., 2 m instead of 3.5 m) in Experiment 1b. Otherwise, this second experiment closely followed every other aspects of Witt et al.'s procedure (i.e., one small or one standard golf hole surrounded by a ring of small or large circles). However, this attempt to replicate Witt et al.'s findings failed: the Ebbinghaus illusion significantly influenced neither hole perception nor putting performance. In two subsequent experiments, we encouraged the emergence of the effect of the illusion by simultaneously presenting both versions of the illusion on the mat. This major adaptation successfully modified the perceived size of the hole but had no impact on putting performance (Experiment 2), even when the putting task was made easier by shortening the putting distance to only 1 m (Experiment 3). In the absence of detectable effects of the illusion on putting performance, we conclude that the effects of visual illusions on novice sports performance do not represent a robust phenomenon.

Aging Stereotypes Must be Taken Into Account for the Diagnosis of Prodromal and Early Alzheimer Disease.

Because of a dramatic increase of older people worldwide, screening for prodromal state of Alzheimer disease (AD) is a major societal challenge. Many individuals diagnosed with prodromal AD, do not convert to AD, some remaining stable and others reversing back to normal. We argue that an important source of this overdiagnosis comes from negative aging stereotypes (eg, the culturally shared beliefs that aging inescapably causes severe cognitive decline and diseases). Many laboratory studies show that such stereotypes impair memory performance in healthy older adults, producing inflated age differences. Research is needed to examine how aging stereotypes implicitly permeate neuropsychological testing and contribute to false positives.

Methodological Variations to Explore Conflicting Results in the Existing Literature of Masking Smile Judgment.

Although a smile can serve as an expression of genuine happiness, it can also be generated to conceal negative emotions. The traces of negative emotion present in these types of smiles can produce micro-expressions, subtle movements of the facial muscles manifested in the upper or lower half of the face. Studies examining the judgment of smiles masking negative emotions have mostly employed dichotomous rating measures, while also assuming that dichotomous categorization of a smile as happy or not is synonymous with judgments of the smile's authenticity. The aim of the two studies was to explore the judgment of enjoyment and masking smiles using unipolar and bipolar continuous rating measures and examine differences in the judgment when instruction varied between judgments of happiness and authenticity. In Experiment 1, participants rated smiles on 7-point scales on perceived happiness and authenticity. In Experiment 2, participants rated the smiles on bipolar 7-point scales between happiness and a negative emotion label. In both studies, similar patterns were observed: faces with traces of fear were rated significantly less happy/authentic and those with traces of anger in the brows were rated significantly happier/more authentic. Regarding varied instruction type, no effect was found for the two instruction types, indicating that participants perceive and judge enjoyment and masking smiles similarly according to these two instructions. Additionally, the use of bipolar scales with dimensions between a negative emotion label and happiness were not consistently effective in influencing the judgement of the masking smile.

[The reversible share of cognitive deficits in older adults]. / La part réversible des déficits cognitifs chez les seniors.

Cognitive performance of older adults is very often inferior to that of younger adults on a variety of laboratory tests assessing basic functions such as memory, inhibition, or attention. Classic hypotheses and theories share the idea that these cognitive deficits are irreversible, due to profound cerebral changes. In this review article, we develop a more positive conception of aging, according to which cognitive deficits are not all irreversible, and can even be partially if not completely reversible. To this end, we present some of the most illustrative research on the reversibility of the effects of aging on cognition. We show how subtle contextual manipulations can change older adults' motivation and strategy, which improve their cognitive performance. We also show that guidance toward the selection of the most appropriate strategy, whether explicit as in selectivity paradigms or implicit as in dual-task procedures, can increase older adults' cognitive performance. We finally describe the hypotheses and theories that both account for low cognitive performance in old age and ways to reverse the effects of cognitive aging.

The effect of instructions and response format on smile judgement.

Our study examined the role of instructions, response type, and definition on the judgement of enjoyment and nonenjoyment smiles. Participants viewed symmetric Duchenne, non-Duchenne, and asymmetric smiles. They were instructed to judge the happiness, authenticity, and sincerity of the smiles using either Likert scales or a dichotomous response type. Participants were also either given a definition of the instruction words "happy," "authentic," and "sincere" or not. Results showed that the probability of saying "really (happy/sincere/authentic)" was higher for the symmetric Duchenne than the asymmetric smiles and higher for the asymmetric than non-Duchenne smiles. Changing the instructions given to participants did not override the effect of smile type with the use of Likert scale or dichotomous response. However, with the use of Likert scale, we observed subtilities that were not observed with the use of dichotomous response. When given a definition, in the case of symmetric non-Duchenne smiles, Likert ratings were significantly lower, and participants were more accurate in their judgement on the dichotomous scale. However, no differences were observed for the asymmetric Duchenne and symmetric Duchenne smiles whether a definition was given or not. Symmetric non-Duchenne and asymmetric Duchenne smiles were also viewed longer when a definition was given than when one was not. Nevertheless, considering methodological variations of our study failed to explain the variations in the pattern of results of previous studies, other avenues should be explored, such as the use of dynamic stimuli and a greater variety of encoders. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

The role of emotion-related individual differences in enjoyment and masking smile judgment.

BACKGROUND: While some research indicates that individuals can accurately judge smile authenticity of enjoyment and masking smile expressions, other research suggest modest judgment rates of masking smiles. The current study explored the role of emotion-related individual differences in the judgment of authenticity and recognition of negative emotions in enjoyment and masking smile expressions as a potential explanation for the differences observed. METHODS: Specifically, Experiment 1 investigated the role of emotion contagion (Doherty in J Nonverbal Behav 21:131-154, 1997), emotion intelligence (Schutte et al. in Personality Individ Differ 25:167-177, 1998), and emotion regulation (Gratz and Roemer in J Psychopathol Behav Assess 26:41-54, 2004) in smile authenticity judgment and recognition of negative emotions in masking smiles. Experiment 2 investigated the role of state and trait anxiety (Spielberger et al. in Manual for the state-trait anxiety inventory, Consulting Psychologists Press, Palo Alto, 1983) in smile authenticity judgment and recognition of negative emotions in the same masking smiles. In both experiments, repeated measures ANOVAs were conducted for judgment of authenticity, probability of producing the expected response, for the detection of another emotion, and for emotion recognition. A series of correlations were also calculated between the proportion of expected responses of smile judgement and the scores on the different subscales. RESULTS: Results of the smile judgment and recognition tasks were replicated in both studies, and echoed results from prior studies of masking smile judgment: participants rated enjoyment smiles as happier than the masking smiles and, of the masking smiles, participants responded "really happy" more often for the angry-eyes masking smiles and more often categorized fear masking smiles as "not really happy". CONCLUSIONS: Overall, while the emotion-related individual differences used in our study seem to have an impact on recognition of basic emotions in the literature, our study suggest that these traits, except for emotional awareness, do not predict performances on the judgment of complex expressions such as masking smiles. These results provide further information regarding the factors that do and do not contribute to greater judgment of smile authenticity and recognition of negative emotions in masking smiles.

Stereotype threat strengthens automatic recall and undermines controlled processes in older adults.

The threat of being judged stereotypically (stereotype threat) may impair memory performance in older adults, thereby producing inflated age differences in memory tasks. However, the underlying mechanisms of stereotype threat in older adults or other stigmatized groups remain poorly understood. Here, we offer evidence that stereotype threat consumes working memory resources in older adults. More important, using a process-dissociation procedure, we found, for the first time, that stereotype threat undermines the controlled use of memory and simultaneously intensifies automatic response tendencies. These findings indicate that competing models of stereotype threat are actually compatible and offer further reasons for researchers and practitioners to pay special attention to age-related stereotypes during standardized neuropsychological testing.

Aging and memory distortions: the impact of aging stereotypes / Vieillissement et distorsions de mémoire : l'impact des stéréotypes du vieillissement

The reliability of our memories is of crucial importance, both in extraordinary situations (e.g. court testimony) and in everyday life (e.g., when a person must take medication on a regular basis). To address these issues, numerous studies documented the conditions under which false memories emerge. Research clearly demonstrated that memory distortions are a normal and frequent phenomenon in the general population, but greatly accentuated in aging. Here, we review studies that documented age-related impact on memory distortions in the DRM and misinformation paradigms. Next, we examine the factors that underlie false memory susceptibility, with a focus on socio-emotional factors, and in particular aging stereotypes. We present recent results that highlighted the way negative age-related stereotypes might threaten older adults' and influence false memory susceptibility. Importantly, we also demonstrate that older adult's memory distortions can easily be reduced when taking into account tasks' characteristics and participants' motivation. Finally, we discuss the implications of age-related stereotypes when older adults' memory is evaluated, both from a theoretical and an applied perspective.

La fiabilité de nos souvenirs est d'une importance cruciale, qu'il s'agisse de situations exceptionnelles (e.g., témoignages judiciaires), ou du quotidien (e.g., lorsqu'une personne doit prendre régulièrement des médicaments). Pour répondre à ces enjeux, de nombreuses recherches se sont attachées à déterminer les conditions d'émergence des faux souvenirs. Ces travaux ont clairement démontré que si les distorsions de mémoire sont un phénomène normal et fréquent dans la population générale, elles sont largement accentuées par le vieillissement. Dans cette revue, nous proposons un état des lieux des recherches ayant documenté l'impact du vieillissement sur la sensibilité aux faux souvenirs dans le paradigme DRM et le paradigme de désinformation. Nous examinons ensuite les facteurs à l'origine de la production des faux souvenirs, en nous centrant sur les facteurs socio-émotionnels, et en particulier les stéréotypes sociaux. À cette fin, nous présentons des résultats récents qui éclairent les conditions dans lesquelles les stéréotypes du vieillissement peuvent constituer une menace, et influencer la sensibilité aux faux souvenirs. Nous discutons enfin des implications de ce phénomène lorsque la véracité des souvenirs est évaluée chez les personnes âgées, dans une perspective théorique mais également appliquée.

Understanding Older Adults' Memory Distortion in the Light of Stereotype Threat.

Numerous studies have documented the detrimental impact of age-based stereotype threat (ABST) on older adults' cognitive performance and especially on veridical memory. However, far fewer studies have investigated the impact of ABST on older adults' memory distortion. Here, we review the subset of research examining memory distortion and provide evidence for the role of stereotype threat as a powerful socio-emotional factor that impacts age-related susceptibility to memory distortion. In this review we define memory distortion as errors in memory that are associated with gist-based errors or source misattributions. Whereas, some of the reviewed experiments support the conclusion that ABST should be considered in the context of age-related differences in memory distortion, others reported little or no impact of stereotype threat. These discrepancies suggest that the role of ABST, and socio-emotional processes generally, in age-related changes in memory distortion are less clear. In this review, we argue that ABST does play an important role in age-related changes in memory distortion. We present evidence suggesting that discrepancies in the reviewed literature may be reconciled when evaluated in the context of the leading theories about stereotype threat: the Executive Resource Depletion hypothesis and the Regulatory Focus theory. We also discuss how differences in methodology and participant characteristics can account for a priori contradictory results in the literature. Finally, we propose some recommendations for researchers and practitioners when assessing memory in older adults.

The Unexpected Relationship Between Retrieval Demands and Memory Performance When Older Adults Are Faced With Age-Related Stereotypes.

OBJECTIVES: In two studies, we examined the effects of age-related stereotype threat on eyewitness memory using the misinformation paradigm to (a) examine stereotype threat in the context of a more ecologically valid memory task and (b) to determine the relationship between task difficulty and susceptibility to stereotype threat. METHODS: After watching a video that depicted a crime, older and younger adult participants were presented with a written synopsis in which information consistent or inconsistent with the original event was presented. Half of the participants were then presented with information designed to activate negative stereotypes about aging. Finally, participants completed a memory test. RESULTS: In Study 1, when participants were instructed to report information from either the video or the synopsis to complete the final memory test, older adults under high stereotype threat were less accurate than those under low threat. In Study 2, when participants were required to engage in more controlled processes at retrieval and respond with only video information, older adults under stereotype threat performed as well or better than those under low threat. DISCUSSION: The results are consistent with the Regulatory Focus Model of Stereotype Threat.

Highlighting and Reducing the Impact of Negative Aging Stereotypes During Older Adults' Cognitive Testing.

As life expectancy increases, aging has become a major health challenge, resulting in a huge effort to better discriminate between normal and pathological cognitive decline. It is thus essential that cognitive tests and their administration are as fair as possible. However, an important source of bias during cognitive testing comes from negative aging stereotypes that can impair the memory performance of older adults and inflate age differences on cognitive tasks. The fear of confirming negative aging stereotypes creates an extra pressure among older adults which interferes with their intellectual functioning and leads them to perform below their true abilities. Here, we present a protocol that highlights simple but efficient interventions to alleviate this age-based stereotype threat effect. The first study showed that simply informing older participants about the presence of younger participants (threat condition) led older adults to underperform on a standardized memory test compared with younger participants, and that this performance difference was eliminated when the test was presented as age-fair (reduced-threat condition). The second study replicated these findings on short cognitive tests used to screen for predementia in clinical settings and showed that teaching older adults about stereotype threat inoculated them against its effects. These results provide useful recommendations about how to improve older adults' memory assessment both in Iab studies and in clinical settings.

Ageing stereotypes and prodromal Alzheimer's disease (AGING): study protocol for an ongoing randomised clinical study.

INTRODUCTION: The number of older people diagnosed with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI), the prodromal state of Alzheimer's disease (AD), is increasing worldwide. However, some patients with aMCI never convert to the AD type of dementia, with some remaining stable and others reverting to normal. This overdiagnosis bias has been largely overlooked and gone unexplained. There is ample evidence in the laboratory that negative ageing stereotypes (eg, the culturally shared belief that ageing inescapably causes severe cognitive decline) contribute to the deteriorating cognitive performances of healthy older adults, leading them to perform below their true abilities. The study described here is intended to test for the first time whether such stereotypes also impair patients' cognitive performances during neuropsychological examinations in memory clinics, resulting in overdiagnosis of aMCI. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: The ongoing study is a 4-year randomised clinical trial comparing patients' physiological stress and cognitive performances during neuropsychological testing in memory clinics. A total of 260 patients attending their first cognitive evaluation will be randomised to either a standard condition of test administration, assumed here to implicitly activate negative ageing stereotypes or a reduced-threat instruction condition designed to alleviate the anxiety arising from these stereotypes. Both groups will be tested with the same test battery and stress biomarkers. For 30 patients diagnosed with aMCI in each group (n=60), biomarkers of neurodegeneration and amyloidopathy will be used to distinguish between aMCI with normal versus abnormal AD biomarkers. A 9-month follow-up will be performed on all patients to identify those whose cognitive performances remain stable, deteriorate or improve. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: This protocol has been approved by the French National Agency for Medicines and Health Products Safety and the Sud-Est I French Ethics Committee (2017-A00946-47). Results will be published in peer-reviewed journals. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT03138018.

Negative Aging Stereotypes Impair Performance on Brief Cognitive Tests Used to Screen for Predementia.

OBJECTIVES: There is today ample evidence that negative aging stereotypes impair healthy older adults' performance on cognitive tasks. Here, we tested whether these stereotypes also decrease performance during the screening for predementia on short cognitive tests widely used in primary care. METHOD: An experiment was conducted on 80 healthy older adults taking the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) under Threat or Reduced-threat condition. RESULTS: Stereotype threat significantly impaired older adults' performance on both tests, resulting in 40% of older adults meeting the screening criteria for predementia, compared with 10% in Reduced-threat condition (MMSE and MoCA averaged). DISCUSSION: Our research highlights the influence of aging stereotypes on short cognitive tests used to screen for predementia. It is of critical importance that physicians provide a threat-free testing environment. Further research should clarify whether this socially induced bias may also operate in secondary care by generating false positives.

Stereotype Threat Alters the Subjective Experience of Memory.

There is now evidence that negative age-related stereotypes about memory reduce older adults' memory performance, and inflate age differences in this domain. Here, we examine whether stereotype threat may also influence the basic feeling that one is more or less able to remember. Using the Remember/Know paradigm, we demonstrated that stereotype threat conducted older adults to a greater feeling of familiarity with events, while failing to retrieve any contextual detail. This finding indicates that stereotype threat alters older adults' subjective experience of memory, and strengthens our understanding of the mechanisms underlying stereotype threat effects.