Successful aging: The role of cognitive gerontology.

This commentary explores the relationships between the construct of successful aging and the experimental psychology of human aging-cognitive gerontology. What can or should cognitive gerontology contribute to understanding, defining, and assessing successful aging? Standards for successful aging reflect value judgments that are culturally and historically situated. Fundamentally, they address social policy; they are prescriptive. If individuals or groups are deemed to be aging successfully, then their characteristics or situations can be emulated. If an individual or a group is deemed to be aging unsuccessfully, then intervention should be considered. Although science is never culture-free or ahistorical, cognitive gerontology is primarily descriptive of age-related change. It is not prescriptive. It is argue that cognitive gerontology has little to contribute to setting standards for successful aging. If, however, better cognitive function is taken as a marker of more successful aging-something not universally accepted-then cognitive gerontology can play an important assessment role. It has a great deal to contribute in determining whether an individual or a group evidences better cognitive function than another. More importantly, cognitive gerontology can provide tools to evaluate the effects of interventions. It can provide targeted measures of perception, attention, memory, executive function, and other facets of cognition that are more sensitive to change than most clinical measures. From a deep understanding of factors affecting cognitive function, cognitive gerontology can also suggest possible interventions. A brief narrative review of interventions that have and have not led to improved cognitive function in older adults. Finally, the enormous range is addressed in the estimates of the proportion of the population that meets a standard for aging successfully, from less than 10% to more than 90%. For research purposes, it would be better to replace absolute cutoffs with correlational approaches (e.g., Freund & Baltes, 1998, Psychology and Aging, 13, 531-543). For policy purposes, cutoffs are necessary, but we propose that assessments of successful aging be based not on absolute cutoffs but on population proportions. An example of one possible standard is this: Those more than 1 standard deviation above the mean are aging successfully; those more than 1 standard deviation below the mean are aging unsuccessfully; those in between are aging usually. Adoption of such a standard may reduce the wide discrepancies in the incidence of successful aging reported in the literature.

Priming performance-related concerns induces task-related mind-wandering.

Two experiments tested the hypothesis that priming of performance-related concerns would (1) increase the frequency of task-related mind-wandering (i.e., task-related interference; TRI) and (2) decrease task performance. In each experiment, sixty female participants completed an operation span task (OSPAN) containing thought content probes. The task was framed as a math task for those in a condition primed for math-related stereotype threat and as a memory task for those in a control condition. In both studies, women whose performance-related concerns were primed via stereotype threat reported more TRI than women in the control. The second experiment used a more challenging OSPAN task and stereotype primed women also had lower math accuracy than controls. These results support the "control failures×current concerns" framework of mind-wandering, which posits that the degree to which the environmental context triggers personal concerns influences both mind-wandering frequency and content.

Aging effects in sequential modulations of poorer-strategy effects during execution of memory strategies.

In this study, we asked young adults and older adults to encode pairs of words. For each item, they were told which strategy to use, interactive imagery or rote repetition. Data revealed poorer-strategy effects in both young adults and older adults: Participants obtained better performance when executing better strategies (i.e., interactive-imagery strategy to encode pairs of concrete words; rote-repetition strategy on pairs of abstract words) than with poorer strategies (i.e., interactive-imagery strategy on pairs of abstract words; rote-repetition strategy on pairs of concrete words). Crucially, we showed that sequential modulations of poorer-strategy effects (i.e., poorer-strategy effects being larger when previous items were encoded with better relative to poorer strategies), previously demonstrated in arithmetic, generalise to memory strategies. We also found reduced sequential modulations of poorer-strategy effects in older adults relative to young adults. Finally, sequential modulations of poorer-strategy effects correlated with measures of cognitive control processes, suggesting that these processes underlie efficient trial-to-trial modulations during strategy execution. Differences in correlations with cognitive control processes were also found between older adults and young adults. These findings have important implications regarding mechanisms underlying memory strategy execution and age differences in memory performance.

Strategy combination during execution of memory strategies in young and older adults.

The present study investigated whether people can combine two memory strategies to encode pairs of words more efficiently than with a single strategy, and age-related differences in such strategy combination. Young and older adults were asked to encode pairs of words (e.g., satellite-tunnel). For each item, participants were told to use either the interactive-imagery strategy (e.g., mentally visualising the two words and making them interact), the sentence-generation strategy (i.e., generate a sentence linking the two words), or with strategy combination (i.e., generating a sentence while mentally visualising it). Participants obtained better recall performance on items encoded with strategy combination than on items encoded with interactive-imagery or sentence-generation strategies. Moreover, we found age-related decline in such strategy combination. These findings have important implications to further our understanding of execution of memory strategies, and suggest that strategy combination occurs in a variety of cognitive domains.

Older Adults' Use of Retrieval Strategies in Everyday Life.

BACKGROUND: Despite declines in cognitive abilities, older adults often perform comparable to younger adults in everyday tasks [J Am Geriatr Soc 1999;47:172-183]. Older adults may compensate for cognitive declines by using more efficient strategies. People often improve their efficiency by switching from an algorithmic strategy where information is computed or looked-up, to a strategy where the information is retrieved directly from memory [J Exp Psychol Gen 1988;117:258-275]. However, older adults are reluctant to shift from algorithmic strategies to retrieval strategies in the laboratory, and this reluctance to use retrieval is driven by both bottom-up (slower learning) and top-down influences (memory confidence, motivation to be quick/accurate) [Psychol Aging 2004;19:452-466; Mem Cognit 2004;32:298-310]. OBJECTIVE: We investigated whether bottom-up and top-down factors influence younger and older adults' decisions to use retrieval-based or algorithmic strategies in everyday life. METHODS: In two studies, participants completed a daily diary for 5 (study 1) or 7 (study 2) days. Participants were asked if and how they completed daily activities within several everyday task domains. They also indicated for how long and how often they completed the specific activity (bottom-up factors), as well as how confident they were in using their memory and how motivated they were to perform the specific activity quickly and accurately (top-down influences). RESULTS: Both studies provided evidence for bottom-up and top-down influences. Additionally, study 2 found that top-down factors (memory confidence and motivation to be quick) were more important for older compared to younger adults. CONCLUSION: These results indicate that strategy choices influence older adults' cognitive efficiency in everyday as well as laboratory learning.

Accuracy and speed feedback: global and local effects on strategy use.

UNLABELLED: BACKGROUND/STUDY CONTEXT: Skill acquisition often involves a shift from an effortful algorithm-based strategy to more fluent memory-based performance. Older adults' slower strategy transitions can be ascribed to both slowed learning and metacognitive factors. Experimenters often provide feedback on response accuracy; this emphasis may either inadvertently reinforce older adults' conservatism or might highlight that retrieval is generally quite accurate. Response time (RT) feedback can lead to more rapid shift to retrieval (Hertzog, Touron, & Hines, 2007, Psychology and Aging, 22, 607-624). METHODS: This study parametrically varied trial-by-trial feedback to examine whether strategy shifts in the noun-pair task in younger (M = 19) and older (M = 67) adults were influenced by type of performance feedback: none, trial accuracy, trial RT, or both accuracy and RT. RESULTS: Older adults who received accuracy feedback retrieved more often, particularly on difficult rearranged trials, and participants who receive speed feedback performed the scanning strategy more quickly. Age differences were also obtained in local (trial-level) reactivity to task performance, but these were not affected by feedback. CONCLUSIONS: Accuracy and speed feedback had distinct global (general) influences on task strategies and performance. In particular, it appears that the standard practice of providing trial-by-trial accuracy feedback might facilitate older adults' use of retrieval strategies in skill acquisition tasks.

Performance predictions affect attentional processes of event-based prospective memory.

To investigate whether making performance predictions affects prospective memory (PM) processing, we asked one group of participants to predict their performance in a PM task embedded in an ongoing task and compared their performance with a control group that made no predictions. A third group gave not only PM predictions but also ongoing-task predictions. Exclusive PM predictions resulted in slower ongoing-task responding both in a nonfocal (Experiment 1) and in a focal (Experiment 2) PM task. Only in the nonfocal task was the additional slowing accompanied by improved PM performance. Even in the nonfocal task, however, was the correlation between ongoing-task speed and PM performance reduced after predictions, suggesting that the slowing was not completely functional for PM. Prediction-induced changes could be avoided by asking participants to additionally predict their performance in the ongoing task. In sum, the present findings substantiate a role of metamemory for attention-allocation strategies of PM.

The role of metacognitive uncertainty in the delayed retrieval shift of older adults.

Strategic choice behavior of older adults in many skill acquisition tasks can be characterized as a delayed and/or incomplete shift to a more efficient retrieval-based strategy, even when older adults possess the requisite knowledge to use it successfully. The noun-pair lookup task (NPLT) requires verification of whether a centrally presented word pair matches one of a set of pairs displayed at the top of the screen. Because the pairings do not change, verification can be made from memory as the associations are learned. This study examines the role of metacognitive uncertainty in explaining older adults' delayed retrieval shift in the NPLT. Older and younger adults participated in a NPLT with previously learned items and new items. For each trial, the look-up table was shown only if the scanning strategy was selected. Some participants were given a precue informing whether the item had been previously learned. Retrieval strategy choice was low for older adults but precueing increased its frequency. Older adults' retrieval choices had minimal costs on NPLT accuracy, suggesting that the delayed retrieval shift can be exacerbated by metacognitive uncertainty that was reduced by precueing. The role of metacognitive uncertainty in older adults' retrieval avoidance was supported by a robust item-level regression effect of retrospective confidence judgments during prelearning tests and later NPLT retrieval strategy choices for older adults.

Aging in Context: Incorporating Everyday Experiences Into the Study of Subjective Age.

The age that a person feels is a strong predictor of their well-being and long-term health, beyond chronological age, showing that people have a self-awareness that provides insight into their aging process. It appears this insight has broad implications for a person's everyday life and functioning. One's subjective age is shaped by metacognitive beliefs about aging, including both expectations about typical changes but most notably the awareness and interpretation of personal experiences. Subjective age has been described as multidimensional, aligning with life domains such as cognitive, social, and physical functioning. This perspective, coupled with laboratory studies that manipulate subjective age, suggests that situational context has an important role in determining the age a person feels. Here we review literature on subjective age with a focus on how research and theoretical perspectives should be adapted to integrate momentary experiences. We propose a contextual model that will help discriminate the links between situational influences and subjective age, as well as resulting behaviors that impact health and well-being. While most research has considered subjective age to be a relatively stable variable, we provide a novel account of how daily life offers a variety of situational contexts and experiences that directly impact the age a person feels at a given moment. We propose that studying moment-to-moment context is a critical next step in understanding the associations between subjective age, lifestyle choices, and health outcomes.

Tracking the dynamics of global and competitive inhibition in early and late adulthood: Evidence from the flanker task.

Inhibitory control is proposed to involve 2 dissociable processes that feature distinct types of inhibition: a threshold adjustment process involving the global inhibition of motor output and a controlled selection process involving competitive inhibition among coactive responses. Recent research with children and young adults indicates that the functioning of these processes can be targeted by measuring participants' hand movements as they perform inhibitory control tasks by reaching to touch response options on a digital display. The current study explores (a) whether this method can be used to target the functioning of the threshold adjustment process and controlled selection process in adults 65 to 75 years of age and, if so, (b) whether the functioning of each process changes between early and late adulthood. Results from the Eriksen flanker task indicate that reach tracking can be used to target the functioning of each process in late adulthood, with older adults and young adults generating similar patterns of initiation time and curvature effects. The congruency effect observed in response times was significantly larger in older adults than in young adults, indicating that inhibitory control declines in late adulthood. Importantly, this effect was specific to initiation times, suggesting that the threshold adjustment process functions differently in early adulthood than in late adulthood. These results present a new perspective on how age-related differences in inhibitory control are conceptualized and assessed, and raise important questions concerning how the threshold adjustment and controlled selection processes function across a wider range of tasks in late adulthood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Schematic support increases memory strategy use in young and older adults.

During learning, a shift in processing often occurs with task experience, where initial slow, algorithmic processing proceeds into fast, retrieval-based processing. Older adults are slower than young adults in the rate at which this shift occurs, in part due to a reluctance to use a retrieval strategy. The present research employed task materials that alleviate age-related differences in associative memory so that participants could rely on prior knowledge or schematic support. The goal was to determine whether older adults' retrieval reluctance is due to a general avoidance of using the retrieval strategy or to low confidence in their memory for unfamiliar task materials. Participants completed two learning tasks: the Noun-Pair Lookup Task, where task materials consist of unrelated noun pairs, and an isomorph, the Grocery-Price Lookup Task, where task materials were grocery items and prices. In this second task, the prices were either market-priced and consistent with everyday experience or were overpriced. Older adults were retrieval reluctant in the Noun-Pair Lookup Task, replicating previous findings. Stark condition differences were found in the Grocery-Price Lookup Task; older adults shifted much sooner for market-priced materials than for overpriced materials, and young adults shifted much later than expected for overpriced materials, where their final levels of learning were inconsistent with their memory use. Condition differences in retrieval use were substantially larger than the differences in retrieval accuracy. These results imply that confidence in using the retrieval strategy matters for both young and older adults, and that retrieval reluctance is not solely an age-related phenomenon. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Metacognitive predictions and strategic adaptation to distractors.

Multitasking is ubiquitous, and substantial evidence has documented the impact on cognitive performance. People do not seem to recognize their multitasking deficits, however, as there is a lack of correspondence between predicted and actualperformance. We have less clarity about how people adapt to multitasking, and howthis varies with age. Thisstudy investigated metacognitive predictions and strategic adaptation in old and young adults using concurrent laboratory tasks. The primary task was visuospatial navigation and the secondary task was visual serial addition. Participants completed each task alone, and then two blocks concurrently. The second dual task block allowed participants to adapt the speed of the navigation task. Young adults performed better than old, and performance suffered with dual tasks for both ages. Predictions were loosely calibrated to navigation performance. Both age groups adapted to multitasking via speed selection, with greater conservatism by older adults, but adapation was not related to predictions.

Age differences in strategic behavior during a computation-based skill acquisition task.

The authors evaluated mechanistic and metacognitive accounts of age differences in strategy transitions during skill acquisition. Old and young participants were trained on a task involving a shift from performing a novel arithmetic algorithm to responding via associative recognition of equation-solution pairings. The strategy shift was manipulated by task instructions that either (a) equally focused on speed and accuracy, (b) encouraged retrieval use as a method toward fast responding, or (c) offered monetary incentives for fast retrieval-based performance. Monetary incentives produced a more rapid shift to retrieval relative to standard instructions; older adults showed a greater incentives effect on retrieval use than younger adults. Monetary incentives encouraged retrieval use and response time improvements despite accuracy costs (a speed-accuracy tradeoff). The pattern of results suggested a role of metacognitive and volitional factors in retrieval shift, indicating that an associative learning deficit cannot fully account for older adults' delayed strategy shift.

Age differences and similarities in the shift from computation to retrieval during reading comprehension.

Previous research has established that 1 mechanism underlying speed-ups in task performance with practice involves a shift from computational processing to retrieval of information encoded earlier in practice. To what extent do young and older adults differ in shifts from computation to retrieval with practice in reading comprehension? Young and older adults read short stories containing an unfamiliar noun-noun combination (e.g., bee caterpillar) followed by disambiguating information indicating the combination's meaning (either the normatively dominant meaning or an alternative subordinate meaning). Stories were presented either once or repeatedly across practice blocks. In Experiment 1, both age groups shifted from computation to retrieval with practice for the repeated items. However, older adults were slower to shift (e.g., older adults showed slower convergence of reading times for repeated subordinate and dominant items). Results of Experiment 2 suggested that the slower shift was due to age differences in bias against using retrieval rather than associative learning differences. The authors compare age differences in retrieval shifts in reading versus other tasks and discuss implications for age differences in the regulation of reading comprehension.

Metacognitive influences on study time allocation in an associative recognition task: An analysis of adult age differences.

The current study evaluated a metacognitive account of study time allocation, which argues that metacognitive monitoring of recognition test accuracy and latency influences subsequent strategic control and regulation. The authors examined judgments of learning (JOLs), recognition test confidence judgments (CJs), and subjective response time (RT) judgments by younger and older adults in an associative recognition task involving 2 study-test phases, with self-paced study in Phase 2. Multilevel regression analyses assessed the degree to which age and metacognitive variables predicted Phase 2 study time independent of actual test accuracy and RT. Outcomes supported the metacognitive account-JOLs and CJs predicted study time independent of recognition accuracy. For older adults with errant RT judgments, subjective retrieval fluency influenced response confidence as well as (mediated through confidence) subsequent study time allocation. Older adults studied items that had been assigned lower CJs longer, suggesting no age deficit in using memory monitoring to control learning.

The Role of Task Understanding on Younger and Older Adults' Performance.

Objectives: Age-related performance decrements have been linked to inferior strategic choices. Strategy selection models argue that accurate task representations are necessary for choosing appropriate strategies. But no studies to date have compared task representations in younger and older adults. Metacognition research suggests age-related deficits in updating and utilizing strategy knowledge, but other research suggests age-related sparing when information can be consolidated into a coherent mental model. Method: Study 1 validated the use of concept mapping as a tool for measuring task representation accuracy. Study 2 measured task representations before and after a complex strategic task to test for age-related decrements in task representation formation and updating. Results: Task representation accuracy and task performance were equivalent across age groups. Better task representations were related to better performance. However, task representation scores remained fairly stable over the task with minimal evidence of updating. Discussion: Our findings mirror those in the mental model literature suggesting age-related sparing of strategy use when information can be integrated into a coherent mental model. Future research should manipulate the presence of a unifying context to better evaluate this hypothesis.

How often are thoughts metacognitive? Findings from research on self-regulated learning, think-aloud protocols, and mind-wandering.

Metacognitive monitoring refers to how people evaluate their cognitive performance. An extensive literature examines how accurately individuals engage in monitoring. The question of how often individuals engage in metacognitive monitoring has been largely neglected, although one might expect situational, group, and individual variability in monitoring frequency. We argue that this is a critical omission, given that the frequency of metacognitive monitoring might have important implications for monitoring accuracy and task performance. Within this review, we highlight findings from three literatures, that each provide insight into how often individuals engage in monitoring. To clarify the important links and potential overlaps between these separate bodies of research, we begin by summarizing the metacognitive monitoring literature, including age-related patterns in monitoring accuracy. We then connect these questions regarding spontaneous monitoring, including age-related patterns in spontaneous monitoring, to targeted reviews of the self-regulated learning, think-aloud protocol, and mind-wandering literatures. We discuss situational and dispositional factors believed to influence monitoring accuracy, and propose that the same factors could potentially influence the frequency of spontaneous monitoring. Additionally, we propose that age-related increases in spontaneous monitoring (as suggested by age-related increases in TRI) may contribute to older adults' intact monitoring abilities. It is our hope that this review will encourage increased attention and research on the topic of spontaneous monitoring.

Age-related differences in mind-wandering in daily life.

In recent years, several laboratory studies have indicated that healthy older adults exhibit a reduction in mind-wandering frequency compared with young adults. However, it is unclear if these findings extend to daily life settings. In the current study, using experience sampling over the course of a week in the daily life of 31 young and 20 older adults, we assessed age-related differences in: (a) mind-wandering frequency, (b) the relationship between affect and mind-wandering frequency, and (c) content of mind wandering. Older adults mind wandered less than young adults in daily life. Across age groups, negative affect was positively associated with mind-wandering occurrence. Finally, older adults reported that their thoughts were more pleasant, interesting, and clear compared with young adults, who had thoughts that were more dreamlike, novel, strange, and racing. Our results provide the first demonstration using thought sampling that older adults exhibit a reduction in mind-wandering frequency in daily life. Implications for current theories of age-related reductions in mind-wandering frequency are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

Does a time-monitoring deficit influence older adults' delayed retrieval shift during skill acquisition?

The authors evaluated age-related time-monitoring deficits and their contribution to older adults' reluctance to shift to memory retrieval in the noun-pair lookup (NP) task. Older adults (M = 67 years) showed slower rates of response time (RT) improvements than younger adults (M = 19 years), because of a delayed strategy shift. Older adults estimated scanning latencies as being faster than they actually were and showed poor resolution in discriminating short from long RTs early in practice. The difference in estimated RT for retrieval and scanning strategies predicted retrieval use, independent of actual RT differences. Separate scanning and recognition memory tasks revealed larger time-monitoring differences for older adults than in the NP task. Apparently, the context of heterogeneous RTs as a result of strategy use in the NP task improved older adults' accuracy of RT estimates. RT feedback had complex effects on time-monitoring accuracy, although it generally improved absolute and relative accuracy of RT estimates. Feedback caused older adults to shift more rapidly to the retrieval strategy in the NP task. Results suggest that deficient time monitoring plays a role in older adults' delayed retrieval shift, although other factors (e.g., confidence in the retrieval strategy) also play a role.

Moderation of older adults' retrieval reluctance through task instructions and monetary incentives.

Previous research using a noun-pair lookup task indicates that older adults delay strategy shift from visual scanning to memory retrieval despite adequate learning, and that this "retrieval reluctance" is related to subjective choice factors. Age differences in spontaneous response criteria, with older adults valuing accuracy and young adults valuing speed, might account for this phenomenon. The present experiment manipulates instructions and reward contingencies to test the flexibility of response criteria and strategy preferences. Task instructions conditions equally focused on speed and accuracy, encouraged retrieval use as a method toward fast responding, or offered monetary incentives for fast retrieval-based performance. Results indicate that older adults in the incentives condition shifted to retrieval earlier than those without incentives, bolstering the argument that reliance on retrieval is volitional.