Is Medical Environment Detrimental to Memory? A Test of A White Coat Effect on Older People's Memory Performance.

OBJECTIVES: Test if older people's memory assessment may be impacted by a medical environment and if memory self-efficacy (MSE) will moderate this effect. METHODS: We evaluated memory performance and MSE in 27 older adults in two different settings: a (control) university research environment, or a (proxy-medical) neuropsychological examination environment. RESULTS: The results showed a MSE × environment interaction effect on story-recall performance, with older people with low MSE performing less well in the proxy-medical situation than in the control situation and with elders with high MSE performing better in the proxy-medical situation than in the control situation. The same marginally significant effect for the word-span task was also found. CONCLUSIONS: Testing in a medical environment undermines the memory performance of older people with low MSE and boosts performance of older people with high MSE. Clinical Implications We encourage neuropsychologists to pay attention to psychosocial determinants of older people's performance when assessing their memory abilities.

How large is the gap between self-report and assessed mental health and does it impact older adult mental health service utilization?

We examined the relationship between self-reported and assessed mental health status and service use, using data from the Health and Retirement Study (N = 9,547). Twelve percent and thirty percent had inaccurate perceptions of their mood and memory status, respectively. No significant difference was found in the likelihood of service use between older adults who were unaware of current depressive symptoms and those who self-reported problems but had no assessed symptoms. Older adults who scored low in cognitive test were more likely to use services, regardless of self-reported memory status. Discrepancies between self-reported and assessed status may contribute to service utilization.

A Commentary on Parent-Child Cognitive Learning Interaction Research: What Have We Learned from Two Decades of Research?

The role of family influences on preschool and school age cognitive development has received considerable empirical attention from cognitive developmental psychology researchers in the last few decades. As a result of the interest, investigators have focused their attention on developing coding/observational systems to capture the interactions occurring between mothers and their young children. This paper reviews a select body of research on parent-child cognitive learning interactions with the goal of determining how the researchers have operationalized the behaviors that occur within learning interactions. The paper concludes with a discussion of the suggestions on next steps for conducting parent-child cognitive learning interaction research in the future.