Decision-making quality of younger and older adults in familiar and unfamiliar domains.

Age-related differences in purchasing decisions were examined as a function of age and familiarity. On each trial, participants received purchasing options which varied in quality but ultimately cost the same amount of money. On half the trials, participants made decisions about items familiar to younger adults and on the other half of the trials, participants made decisions about products familiar to older adults. The participants' task was to choose the option that provided the best value for the money. We were particularly interested in participants' performance when inferencing was required to select the optimal option from the two choices. Younger adults outperformed older adults in unfamiliar but not familiar domains. It appeared that both younger and older adults used inferencing and elaborative processing to make the best decision in familiar domains but that only younger adults used inferencing and elaborative processing in unfamiliar domains.

Age as a predictive factor of mental health service use among adults with depression and/or anxiety disorder receiving care through the Veterans Health Administration.

OBJECTIVE: This study compared mental health service utilization by treatment modality and determined predictive factors of use among younger-adult (18-35 years), middle-aged adult (36-64 years), and older-adult veterans (65+ years) with a newly recognized diagnosis of depression and/or anxiety disorder. METHODS: This retrospective study used data from the Veterans Health Administration National Patient Care Database outpatient and inpatient treatment files during the 2010 fiscal year (N = 583,692). RESULTS: Younger adults were the most likely to use mental health services, followed by middle-aged adults and then older adults. Age was found to be one of the greatest predictors of utilization of mental health services, with odds of use being threefold among younger adults compared with older adults. CONCLUSIONS: Continued efforts are needed to improve the awareness of, access to, and receipt of mental health services in veterans, particularly older adults, with depression and anxiety disorders. Published 2015. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.

Memory training plus yoga for older adults.

Previous tests of the SeniorWISE intervention with community-residing older adults that were designed to improve affect and cognitive performance were successful and positively affected these outcomes. In this study, we tested whether adding yoga to the intervention would affect the outcomes. Using a quasiexperimental pre-post design, we delivered 12 hours of SeniorWISE memory training that included a 30-minute yoga component before each training session. The intervention was based on the four components of self-efficacy theory: enactive mastery experience, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and physiologic arousal. We recruited 133 older adults between the ages of 53 and 96 years from four retirement communities in Central Texas. Individuals were screened and tested and then attended training sessions two times a week over 4 weeks. A septuagenarian licensed psychologist taught the memory training, and a certified yoga instructor taught yoga. Eighty-three participants completed at least 9 hours (75%) of the training and completed the posttest. Those individuals who completed made significant gains in memory performance, instrumental activities of daily living, and memory self-efficacy and had fewer depressive symptoms. Thirteen individuals advanced from poor to normal memory performance, and seven improved from impaired to poor memory performance; thus, 20 individuals improved enough to advance to a higher functioning memory group. The findings from this study of a memory training intervention plus yoga training show that the benefits of multifactorial interventions had additive benefits. The combined treatments offer a unique model for brain health programs and the promotion of nonpharmacological treatment with the goals of maintaining healthy brain function and boosting brain plasticity.

NEW AND EMERGING PROFESSIONALS: Does Race Moderate Social Support and Psychological Distress Among Rural Older Adults?

Greater social support is associated with decreased psychological distress among older adults. Researchers have found racial differences in psychological distress. Might race moderate social support and psychological distress? The authors hypothesized African American collectivistic values could increase the importance of social support. Participants were rural adults aged 60 and older (N = 100). Multiple regression analyses controlled for health, income, education, and sex. Race moderated satisfaction with social support and psychological distress. However, greater satisfaction predicted less psychological distress among Caucasians while it was not associated with African Americans' distress in this sample. Achieving satisfaction with social support may be particularly important for Caucasians receiving therapy. Interventions may also address strategies to improve physical health, emotional support, and quality of social support, which significantly predicted psychological distress for both groups.

Effects of homograph meaning frequency on semantic satiation.

This study examined the effects of homograph meaning frequency on semantic satiation within an ambiguity resolution paradigm. Participants received 3 homograph conditions: the concordant (QUICK-FAST-SPEEDY), discordant (HUNGER-FAST-SPEEDY) and neutral (CEILING-FAST-SPEEDY). On each trial, a prime (e.g., QUICK) was presented for various numbers of repetitions. Afterward, the prime was removed and participants made relatedness judgments about a homograph and target. On half of the trials, the prime was related to a high-frequency meaning of the homograph, and on the other half of the trials, the prime was related to a low-frequency meaning. The concordant condition yielded evidence of semantic satiation across meaning frequency conditions (QUICK-FAST-SPEEDY), but the discordant condition only yielded evidence of semantic satiation when the prime activated a subordinate meaning of the homograph (HUNGER-FAST-SPEEDY).

Aging, imagery, and the bizarreness effect.

This study examined the bizarre imagery effect in young and older adults, under incidental and intentional conditions. Intentionality was manipulated across experiments, with participants receiving an incidental free recall test in Experiment 1 and an intentional test in Experiment 2. This study also examined the relation between working memory resources and the bizarreness effect. In Experiment 1 young and older adults were presented with common and bizarre sentences; they later received an incidental recall test. There were no age differences in sensitivity to the bizarreness effect in Experiment 1 when ANOVAs were used to analyze the data. However, when the bizarreness effect was examined in terms of effect size, there was evidence that younger adults produced larger bizarreness effect sizes than younger adults. Experiment 2 further explored age differences in sensitivity to the bizarreness effect by presenting young and older adults with bizarre and common sentences under intentional learning conditions. Experiment 2 failed to yield age differences as a function of item type (bizarre vs. common). In addition, Experiment 2 failed to yield significant evidence that the bizarreness effect is modulated by working memory resources. The results of this study are most consistent with the distinctiveness account of the bizarreness effect.