Age-related Changes In Cognitive Abilities Research Articles

UNDERSTANDING THE COMPLEXITY AND USE CHALLENGES OF MEDICARE PLAN FINDER FOR OLDER ADULTS

Abstract It is critical for older adults to find an affordable health plan that meets their needs. The Medicare.gov site provides a Medicare plan finder (MPF), which is an online tool designed to assist individuals to find a Medicare plan that is most suitable for them. The MPF was updated in 2021 but remains complex and may be especially difficult for older adults to use, given age-related changes in cognitive abilities. To identify potential use challenges for MFP, we documented the complexity of the steps required for accomplishing the goal of finding a plan. We completed a task analysis using two use-case scenarios to illustrate potential paths one could take in using MPF. Both use cases were set to enroll in the same plan to explore how and why their paths could differ, focusing on whether they have prior information and experience with Medicare and MPF. The number of steps taken by these two use cases ranged from 10 steps (experienced user) to 32 steps (novice user), due to the different needs they had for using MPF. The results imply that the one-for-all design of MPF may not be optimal for meeting the different needs of users. We propose two solutions to reduce the number of steps for using MPF. First, users need to be able to access the functions they want from the start (e.g., using quick links from the initial page). Second, users would benefit from learning what they need to know and prepare before they start using MPF.

Invention and the life course: Age differences in patenting

Previous research suggests creative ability peaks at ages between the mid 30s and early 40s, but has not focused on the role of age-related changes in cognitive abilities in this pattern. Cognitive processes show aging-related increases in experience-based knowledge (pragmatics or crystallized abilities) and decreases in the ability to process novel information quickly and efficiently (mechanics or fluid abilities). We explore the role of these age-related changes in the invention process, using a new database created by combining the publicly available patent data with information on inventor ages scraped from directory websites for approximately 1.2 million U.S.-resident inventors patenting between 1976 and 2017. We have made these data publicly available on the Harvard Dataverse and full documentation can be found in Kaltenberg et al. (2021) In the current paper, we present some descriptive statistics, and explore changing patterns of invention as inventor's age. For solo inventors, backward citations and originality increase with age, consistent with their being connected to crystallized intelligence. Forward citations, number of claims, and generality measures, as well as a citation-based measure of disruptiveness decline with inventor age, consistent with a connection to fluid intelligence. A similar pattern was found for performance in teams based on the average age of inventors in the team. Exploration of age diversity showed that teams with a wider age range had patents that are slightly more important (i.e., with more forward citations). Merging of these new data with other data that capture diverse aspects of inventors' environment and incentives offers rich potential for new research on invention.

The Role of Neuropsychological Function Tests in Predicting Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment in the Elderly

Background: Various studies have documented age-related changes in cognitive abilities and neural basis. Objectives: To investigate the role of neuropsychological function tests in predicting amnestic mild cognitive impairment in the elderly. Materials & Methods: In this cross-sectional study with a correlational design, the study population included elderly people over 60 years old residing in Bojnord City, Iran, in the spring of 2019. The participants were selected by cluster sampling method (n=128). The study instruments included the Bender-Gestalt test, Wechsler memory scale-revised, Wechsler adult intelligence scale third edition, and behavior rating inventory of executive functions. According to the scores of the elderly in the Wechsler memory scale (cut-off score=70), the participants were divided into two groups with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and no MCI. For analyzing data, the discriminant analysis was performed using SPSS v. 23. Results: Discriminant analysis showed that the obtained discriminant function had a significant diagnostic power (χ2 =166.001, P<0.0001) and 70% of the difference between the two groups with amnestic mild cognitive impairment and no mild cognitive impairment was explained by scores of fluid intelligence, visual-motor coordination, and executive functions. The predictor variables correctly classified 96.9% of the elderly in the groups of amnestic MCI and no MCI. Visual-motor coordination (coefficient=0.53) and fluid intelligence (coefficient=-0.54) were strong variables in predicting amnestic MCI. Conclusion: Neuropsychological function tests can help predict amnestic MCI in the elderly

Sleep spindles and intelligence in early childhood-developmental and trait-dependent aspects.

Sleep spindles act as a powerful marker of individual differences in cognitive ability. Sleep spindle parameters correlate with both age-related changes in cognitive abilities and with the age-independent concept of IQ. While some studies have specifically demonstrated the relationship between sleep spindles and intelligence in young children, our previous work in older subjects revealed sex differences in the sleep spindle correlates of IQ, which was never investigated in small children before. We investigated the relationship between age, Raven Colored Progressive Matrices (CPM) scores and sleep spindles in 28 young children (age 4-8 years, 15 girls). We specifically investigated sex differences in the psychometric correlates of sleep spindles. We also aimed to separate the correlates of sleep spindles that are because of age-related maturation from other effects that reflect an age-independent relationship between sleep spindles and general intelligence. Our results revealed a modest positive correlation between fast spindle amplitude and age. Raven CPM scores positively correlated with both slow and fast spindle amplitude, but this effect remained a tendency in males and vanished after correcting for the effects of age. Age-corrected correlations between Raven CPM scores and both slow and fast spindle amplitude were only significant in females. Overall, our results show that in male children sleep spindles are a maturational marker, but in female children they indicate trait-like intelligence, in line with previous studies in adolescent and adult subjects. Thalamocortical white matter connectivity may be the underlying mechanism behind both higher spindle amplitude and higher intelligence in female, but not male subjects. (PsycINFO Database Record

Extracting Response Style Bias From Measures of Positive and Negative Affect in Aging Research.

This study investigated the role of response style biases in the assessment of positive and negative affect in aging research; it addressed whether response styles (a) are associated with age-related changes in cognitive abilities, (b) lead to distorted conclusions about age differences in affect, and (c) reduce the convergent and predictive validity of affect measures in relation to health outcomes. A multidimensional item response theory model was used to extract response styles from affect ratings provided by respondents to the psychosocial questionnaire (n = 6,295; aged 50-100 years) in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). The likelihood of extreme response styles (disproportionate use of "not at all" and "very much" response categories) increased significantly with age, and this effect was mediated by age-related decreases in HRS cognitive test scores. Removing response styles from affect measures did not alter age patterns in positive and negative affect; however, it consistently enhanced the convergent validity (relationships with concurrent depression and mental health problems) and predictive validity (prospective relationships with hospital visits, physical illness onset) of the affect measures. The results support the importance of detecting and controlling response styles when studying self-reported affect in aging research.

Cognitive Load and Listening Effort: Concepts and Age-Related Considerations.

Listening effort has been recognized as an important dimension of everyday listening, especially with regard to the comprehension of spoken language. At constant levels of comprehension performance, the level of effort exerted and perceived during listening can differ considerably across listeners and situations. In this article, listening effort is used as an umbrella term for two different types of effort that can arise during listening. One of these types is processing effort, which is used to denote the utilization of "extra" mental processing resources in listening conditions that are adverse for an individual. A conceptual description is introduced how processing effort could be defined in terms of situational influences, the listener's auditory and cognitive resources, and the listener's personal state. Also, the proposed relationship between processing effort and subjectively perceived listening effort is discussed. Notably, previous research has shown that the availability of mental resources, as well as the ability to use them efficiently, changes over the course of adult aging. These common age-related changes in cognitive abilities and their neurocognitive organization are discussed in the context of the presented concept, especially regarding situations in which listening effort may be increased for older people.

Keeping track of who said what: Performance on a modified auditory n-back task with young and older adults.

A modified auditory n-back task was used to examine the ability of young and older listeners to remember the content of spoken messages presented from different locations. The messages were sentences from the Coordinative Response Measure (CRM) corpus, and the task was to judge whether a target word on the current trial was the same as in the most recent presentation from the same location (left, center, or right). The number of trials between comparison items (the number back) was varied while keeping the number of items to be held in memory (the number of locations) constant. Three levels of stimulus uncertainty were evaluated. Low- and high-uncertainty conditions were created by holding the talker (voice) and nontarget words constant, or varying them unpredictably across trials. In a medium-uncertainty condition, each location was associated with a specific talker, thus increasing predictability and ecological validity. Older listeners performed slightly worse than younger listeners, but there was no significant difference in response times (RT) for the two groups. An effect of the number back (n) was seen for both PC and RT; PC decreased steadily with n, while RT was fairly constant after a significant increase from n = 1 to n = 2. Apart from the lower PC for the older group, there was no effect involving age for either PC or RT. There was an effect of target word location (faster RTs with a late-occurring target) and an effect of uncertainty (faster RTs with a constant talker-location mapping, relative to the high-uncertainty condition). A similar pattern of performance was observed with a group of elderly hearing-impaired listeners (with and without shaping to ensure audibility), but RTs were substantially slower and the effect of uncertainty was absent. Apart from the observed overall slowing of RTs, these results provide little evidence for an effect of age-related changes in cognitive abilities on this task.

Mental work demands, retirement, and longitudinal trajectories of cognitive functioning.

Age-related changes in cognitive abilities are well-documented, and a very important indicator of health, functioning, and decline in later life. However, less is known about the course of cognitive functioning before and after retirement and specifically whether job characteristics during one's time of employment (i.e., higher vs. lower levels of mental work demands) moderate how cognition changes both before and after the transition to retirement. We used data from n = 4,182 (50% women) individuals in the Health and Retirement Study, a nationally representative panel study in the United States, across an 18 year time span (1992-2010). Data were linked to the O*NET occupation codes to gather information about mental job demands to examine whether job characteristics during one's time of employment moderates level and rate of change in cognitive functioning (episodic memory and mental status) both before and after retirement. Results indicated that working in an occupation characterized by higher levels of mental demands was associated with higher levels of cognitive functioning before retirement, and a slower rate of cognitive decline after retirement. We controlled for a number of important covariates, including socioeconomic (education and income), demographic, and health variables. Our discussion focuses on pathways through which job characteristics may be associated with the course of cognitive functioning in relation to the important transition of retirement. Implications for job design as well as retirement are offered.

The impact of brain size on pilot performance varies with aviation training and years of education

Previous studies have consistently reported age-related changes in cognitive abilities and brain structure. Previous studies also suggest compensatory roles for specialized training, skill, and years of education in the age-related decline of cognitive function. The Stanford/VA Aviation Study examines the influence of specialized training and skill level (expertise) on age-related changes in cognition and brain structure. This preliminary report examines the effect of aviation expertise, years of education, age, and brain size on flight simulator performance in pilots aged 45-68 years. Fifty-one pilots were studied with structural magnetic resonance imaging, flight simulator, and processing speed tasks. There were significant main effects of age (p < .01) and expertise (p < .01), but not of whole brain size (p > .1) or education (p > .1), on flight simulator performance. However, even though age and brain size were correlated (r = -0.41), age differences in flight simulator performance were not explained by brain size. Both aviation expertise and education were involved in an interaction with brain size in predicting flight simulator performance (p < .05). These results point to the importance of examining measures of expertise and their interactions to assess age-related cognitive changes.

Learning at old age: a study on winter bees

Ageing is often accompanied by a decline in learning and memory abilities across the animal kingdom. Understanding age-related changes in cognitive abilities is therefore a major goal of current research. The honey bee is emerging as a novel model organism for age-related changes in brain function, because learning and memory can easily be studied in bees under controlled laboratory conditions. In addition, genetically similar workers naturally display life expectancies from 6 weeks (summer bees) to 6 months (winter bees). We studied whether in honey bees, extreme longevity leads to a decline in cognitive functions. Six-month-old winter bees were conditioned either to odours or to tactile stimuli. Afterwards, long-term memory and discrimination abilities were analysed. Winter bees were kept under different conditions (flight/no flight opportunity) to test for effects of foraging activity on learning performance. Despite their extreme age, winter bees did not display an age-related decline in learning or discrimination abilities, but had a slightly impaired olfactory long-term memory. The opportunity to forage indoors led to a slight decrease in learning performance. This suggests that in honey bees, unlike in most other animals, age per se does not impair associative learning. Future research will show which mechanisms protect winter bees from age-related deficits in learning.

Accommodating Age-Related Differences in Computer-Based Information Retrieval Tasks

Previous research has shown that spatial ability is associated with performance on information retrieval tasks. Age-related changes in spatial ability may thus explain older adults' tendency to have lower performance on such tasks. However, previous studies have emphasized hierarchical information organization. The current study will examine the extent to which a different information retrieval interface can accommodate age-related changes in cognitive abilities. Younger and older adult performance in two information retrieval interfaces will be compared. One interface is meant to simulate hierarchically organized information systems while the second interface is specifically designed to reduce demands on age-related abilities while increasing demands on age-invariant abilities. It is expected that the results of this study will identify potential methods for improving information retrieval task performance for older adults.

Impact of Age-related Hearing Impairment on Cognitive Task Performance: Evidence for Improving Existing Methodologies

Recent empirical evidence underscoring the necessity of considering the role hearing abilities when using auditory tasks to assess age-related changes in cognitive abilities is presented. Young participants, screened for hearing impairment, were required to perform a simulated driving task concurrently with an auditory task in which stimuli were presented at intensity levels simulating age-related hearing impairment. Young participants demonstrated performance decrements mirroring those of older participants in a separate but similar dual task investigation. In conjunction with evidence found by previous researchers, the results presented here provide clear evidence for the need to utilize methodologies that account for age-related hearing deficit when using auditory tasks as indices of cognitive abilities with older adults.

A Comparative Study of Text-Editing Programs among a Sample of Older Adults

Research indicates that older adults have difficulty acquiring text-editing skills. The data suggest that the cognitive demands associated with text-editing programs create problems for older learners given the age-related changes in cognitive abilities. This study compared the learning efficiency of older adults for three text-editing programs which varied in format and command structure. A total of 45, computer naive, women ranging in age from 40 to 70 years participated. The results indicated significant differences in learning efficiency as a function of text-editing program. Participants using a full screen editor with pull down menus demonstrated significantly better performance than did those using other programs. Data was also collected regarding types of difficulties encountered by subjects during learning. This type of information can be used as input into the design of future software and training programs.