The practice of speleology: What is its relationship with spatial abilities?

Given the evidence of motor and exploring activities being related to spatial abilities on different scales, the present study considers the case of speleology, a peculiar underground exploratory activity. The relation of this practice with spatial abilities was examined. The study compares a group of expert speleologists (18), a group with a reduced amount of experience in speleology (19 novice speleologists), and a group with a similar amount of practice but in the outdoors (19 experts mountaineers). Group differences will be investigated in terms of (i) small-scale spatial task performance (rotation-based and spatial working memory); (ii) large-scale environment learning (reproduced using verbal descriptions) asking participants to learn a path through a cave or up a mountain (in a counterbalanced order) and then to test their recall with true/false spatial questions and graphical representation tasks; and (iii) self-reports of wayfinding attitudes. The results of linear models showed that, after controlling for age, gender, years of education, and vocabulary scores, expert speleologists had greater mental rotation and perspective-taking abilities and less spatial anxiety than expert mountaineers, and the former performed the true/false questions better than the latter. It should be noted that participants who reported having guiding/path-finding experiences had greater accuracy in graphical representation performance and higher scores in attitude towards orientation. Overall, expertise in speleology is related to spatial abilities on different scales and might have a distinctive role in comparison with other motor practices, pointing to the potential value of examining speleology in the spatial cognition framework.

Episodic future thinking: the role of working memory and inhibition on age-related differences.

The ability to remember past events and imagine future events (episodic future thinking-EFT) has been shown to decline with aging. However, only few studies have analyzed the cognitive mechanisms involved in EFT in both young and older adults. The present study examined the role of working memory and inhibition on age-related differences between young and older adults in EFT, in response to short sentences reflecting common events, some of which were repeated in both conditions (past and future). Thirty-seven young and 36 older adults completed an adapted version of the autobiographical interview, in which sentences were presented. Results showed that processing resources explained a significant part of the variance in the amount of details; in particular, inhibition explained the amount of external details produced in the future condition. In addition, using sentences, the older group did not differ from the young adults in terms of the proportion of internal details recalled in the past condition, whereas they produced a lower proportion of internal details in the future condition. The effect of using structured material was reinforced by repeating some sentences in the past. Further, only older adults rated the remembered episodes as more emotionally salient and relevant than the imagined ones. Age-related differences between young and older adults in EFT appear to depend on the type of material used, on basic mechanisms of cognition, and are characterized by both quantitative and qualitative differences.

Gains in language comprehension relating to working memory training in healthy older adults.

OBJECTIVE: A growing number of studies are focusing on cognitive training procedures to delay age-related decline. Given the crucial role of working memory (WM) in everyday life, some studies have recently analyzed gains deriving from WM training and their transfer and maintenance effects in older adults. METHOD: The present study investigates the efficacy of a verbal WM training program in 20 65-75 year old adults with no cognitive impairments, considering the specific training-related gains in a verbal WM task (criterion) and the transfer effects on measures of WM updating, reasoning, and on abilities related more to daily life, that is language comprehension. Maintenance of training benefits was also assessed after 6 months. RESULTS: The older adults given training performed better than controls in the criterion task and retained this benefit 6 months later. Immediate transfer effects were seen in most of the abilities considered (reasoning and language comprehension performance) and were substantially maintained at the 6-month follow-up. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that WM training is a promising approach for preserving abilities relating to everyday activities, helping to prolong older adults' independence and well-being.

Benefits of training working memory in amnestic mild cognitive impairment: specific and transfer effects.

BACKGROUND: A growing number of studies are attempting to understand how effective cognitive interventions may be for patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI), particularly in relation to their memory problems. METHODS: The present study aimed to explore the benefits of a working memory (WM) training program in aMCI patients. Patients (N = 20) were randomly assigned to two training programs: the experimental group practiced with a verbal WM task, while the active control group conducted educational activities on memory. RESULTS: Results showed that the aMCI patients completing the WM training obtained specific gains in the task trained with some transfer effects on other WM measures (visuospatial WM) and on processes involved in or related to WM, e.g. fluid intelligence (the Cattell test) and long-term memory. This was not the case for the aMCI control group, who experienced only a very limited improvement. CONCLUSION: This pilot study suggests that WM training could be a valuable method for improving cognitive performance in aMCI patients, possibly delaying the onset of Alzheimer's disease.

Remembering the past and imagining the future: age-related differences between young, young-old and old-old.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Few studies have analyzed the ability to remember past events and imagine future events in older adults. The present study examines age-related differences between young, young-old, and old-old adults in creating mental images of autobiographic episodes from the past and from the future. METHODS: Cue words were presented, and for each of these, participants had to remember an autobiographic past event or imagine a future event. Performance was analyzed in terms of type of autobiographical images created (specific or general) and their vividness. Moreover, individual differences in temporal perspective were analyzed as a mediator of performance. RESULTS: Old-old adults produced less specific, but more general events compared to young adults and young-old in the future condition. Moreover, only old-old produced more general images in the future than in the past. In contrast, young-old showed intermediate performance, more similar to that of young adults for both specific and autobiographical images. A similar pattern was found with regard to vividness of images produced. Regression analyses showed that the proportion of images produced in the past and the future was interdependent and was accounted by age and individual differences in temporal perspective. CONCLUSIONS: Taken together, these results indicate that the ability to recall specific autobiographical past events and imagined future events is maintained in young-old, but is impaired when old-old adults are considered. Results are discussed in terms of the more accentuated cognitive decline that occurs in late adulthood.

Cognitive and non-cognitive variables influencing age-related effect of mind wandering across the adult life span.

This study aimed to assess the effects of aging on mind wandering (MW) using a sustained attention to response task (SART) with a low cognitive demand. All task-unrelated thoughts (TUTs) and the subcategory of stimulus-independent thoughts (SITUTs) were examined across the adult life span. The relationship between MW, cognitive variables (attention, inhibition, working memory), and non-cognitive variables (mindfulness, psychological well-being, and anxiety) was investigated. The sample included 210 healthy participants from 20 to 89 years old. The overall results showed few or no age-related changes in both TUTs and SITUTs. Path analyses revealed that the effect of age on both TUTs and SITUTs was only indirect and mediated by attentional resources, as well as by some aspects of psychological well-being (i.e., emotional competence), which had a direct effect, however. These findings raise doubts about any age-related differences between young and older adults' MW. Changes in MW across the adult life span are thus discussed along with the method and tasks used to assess it and different variables affecting it.

Characterizing cognitive inhibitory deficits in mild cognitive impairment.

Individuals with mild cognitive impairment -MCI- show relative weaknesses in executive functioning (EF), as well as poor memory, but the inhibition-related mechanisms behind EF impairment in MCI have not been examined systematically. The aim of the present study was to systematically investigate inhibitory function in individuals with MCI to ascertain whether pathological aging is characterized by deficits in inhibitory processes and whether such impairment is confined to specific inhibition-related mechanisms. Tasks assessing inhibition-related functions - i.e. prepotent response inhibition (measured with the Color Stroop test), response to distracters (assessed using a text with distracters task), and resistance to proactive interference (assessed with a proactive interference task) - were administered to individuals with MCI and to healthy older controls. Individuals with MCI made more intrusion errors in the proactive interference task than controls, while the two groups' performance was comparable in prepotent response inhibition and response to distracters. This pattern of findings suggests that MCI is associated with specific inhibition problems.ty.

Validating older adults' reports of less mind-wandering: An examination of eye movements and dispositional influences.

The Control Failures × Concerns theory perspective proposes that mind-wandering occurs, in part, because of failures to inhibit distracting thoughts from entering consciousness (McVay & Kane, 2012). Despite older adults (OAs) exhibiting poorer inhibition, they report less mind-wandering than do young adults (YAs). Proposed explanations include (a) that OAs' thought reports are less valid due to an unawareness of, or reluctance to report, task-unrelated thoughts (TUTs) and (b) that dispositional factors protect OAs from mind-wandering. The primary goal of the current study was to test the validity of thought reports via eye-tracking. A secondary goal was to examine whether OAs' greater mindfulness (Splevins, Smith, & Simpson, 2009) or more positive mood (Carstensen, Isaacowitz, & Charles, 1999) protects them from TUTs. We found that eye movement patterns predicted OAs' TUT reports and YAs' task-related interference (TRI, or thoughts about one's performance) reports. Additionally, poor comprehension was associated with more TUTs in both age groups and more TRI in YAs. These results support the validity of OAs' thought reports. Concerning the second aim of the study, OAs' greater tendency to observe their surroundings (a facet of mindfulness) was related to increased TRI, and OAs' more positive mood and greater motivation partially mediated age differences in TUTs. OAs' reduced TUT reports appear to be genuine and potentially related to dispositional factors.

When the mind wanders: age-related differences between young and older adults.

Interest in mind wandering (MW) has grown in recent years, but few studies have assessed this phenomenon in older adults. The aim of this study was to assess age-related differences between young, young-old and old-old adults in MW using two versions of the sustained attention to response task (SART), one perceptual and one semantic. Different indicators were examined (i.e., reported MW episodes and behavioral indices of MW such as response time latency and variability, incorrect response and omission errors). The relationship between MW, certain basic mechanisms of cognition (working memory, inhibition and processing speed), cognitive failures and intrusive thoughts in everyday life was also explored. Findings in both versions of the SART indicated that older adults reported a lower frequency of MW episodes than young adults, but some of the behavioral indices of MW (response time variability, incorrect response and omission errors) were higher in old-old adults. This seems to suggest that MW becomes less frequent with aging, but more pervasive and detrimental to performance. Our results also indicated that the role of age and cognitive mechanisms in explaining MW depends on the demands of the SART task considered.

Benefits of training visuospatial working memory in young-old and old-old.

The purpose of the present study was to test the efficacy of a visuospatial working memory (WM) training in terms of its transfer effects and maintenance effects, in the young-old and old-old. Forty young-old and 40 old-old adults took part in the study. Twenty participants in each age group received training with a visuospatial WM task, whereas the others served as active controls and completed alternative activities. Training benefits were examined, considering (a) the specific training-related gains in a visuospatial WM task (criterion); and (b) the transfer effects on measures of verbal WM, visuospatial short-term memory, inhibition, processing speed, and reasoning. Maintenance of training benefits was also assessed after 8 months. Results showed that the trained groups (both young-old and old-old), but not the control groups, performed better in the WM measures and preserved these gains after 8 months. Some transfer effects were found, but only in the young-old-trained participants, and they were not maintained at the follow-up. These results are discussed in terms of the efficacy of WM training for older adults when a visuospatial modality is used.

Working memory training in old age: an examination of transfer and maintenance effects.

The present study examined the efficacy of a verbal working memory (WM) training program in old-old individuals (over 75 years of age). Thirty-six adults aged 75-87 took part in the study: 18 were randomly assigned to receive training and the remainder served as active controls. Specific training gains in a verbal WM task (criterion task), and transfer effects on measures of visuospatial WM, short-term memory, inhibition, processing speed, and fluid intelligence were examined. The trained old-old adults performed better than the controls in the criterion task, and this benefit persisted after 8 months; they also showed an increase in the efficiency of inhibitory mechanisms at follow-up compared with pretest. The results of this study suggest that the present WM training program produces benefits maintained over time even in old-old adults. These findings confirm that there is still room for plasticity in the basic mechanisms of cognition in advance old age.

Impact of metacognition and motivation on the efficacy of strategic memory training in older adults: analysis of specific, transfer and maintenance effects.

The current study examines the contribution of a number of metacognitive and motivational variables in explaining specific, transfer and maintenance effects of a strategic memory training program, based on the use of mental imagery, in older adults. Participants were assessed before and after the training (immediately post-test, and at 3- and 6-month follow-up) on list recall (criterion) and working memory (transfer) tasks. At the pre-test, metacognition (use of strategies, belief about memory, control on memory) and motivational measures (cognitive engagement, self-efficacy) were also collected. The training produced a benefit in both the criterion and transfer tasks, which was maintained at follow-up. Some of the metacognitive and motivational measures, over and above the level of performance obtained at pre-test, predicted the gains in the objective memory measures. The findings confirmed the importance of considering the role of metacognitive attitudes of older adults in memory training activities.