Music Listening, Emotion, and Cognition in Older Adults.

Using the arousal and mood hypothesis as a theoretical framework, we examined whether community-dwelling older adults (N = 132) exhibited cognitive benefits after listening to music. Participants listened to shorter (≈2.5 min) or longer (≈8 min) excerpts from recordings of happy- or sad-sounding music or from a spoken-word recording. Before and after listening, they completed tasks measuring visuospatial working memory (WM), cognitive flexibility and speed, verbal fluency, and mathematical ability, as well as measures of arousal and mood. In general, older adults improved from pre- to post-test on the cognitive tasks. For the test of WM, the increase was greater for participants who heard happy-sounding music compared to those in the other two groups. The happy-sounding group also exhibited larger increases in arousal and mood, although improvements in mood were evident only for the long-duration condition. At the individual level, however, improvements in WM were unrelated to changes in arousal or mood. In short, the results were partially consistent with the arousal and mood hypothesis. For older adults, listening to happy-sounding music may optimize arousal levels and mood, and improve performance on some cognitive tasks (i.e., WM), even though there is no direct link between changes in arousal/mood and changes in WM.

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.

Path Learning From Navigation in Aging: The Role of Cognitive Functioning and Wayfinding Inclinations.

Aging coincides with a decline in navigation and wayfinding abilities, but it is unclear to what extent factors relating to a given individual may contribute to mitigating this decline. The present study aims to analyze how older adults' objective cognitive functioning and self-reported subjective wayfinding inclinations predict their navigation performance. Sixty-four older adults were assessed on their general cognitive functioning (all scoring from 22 to 30 on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, MoCA), visuospatial working memory (VSWM), and perspective-taking abilities. Their self-assessed wayfinding inclinations (such as their sense of direction, pleasure in exploring places, and spatial anxiety) were also examined. Then participants learned a path in an environment from video navigation and performed a route repetition task (which maintained the same egocentric perspective as the learning phase), and a sketch map task (which involved switching from an egocentric perspective used in the learning phase to an allocentric perspective). The results showed that positive wayfinding inclinations (in terms of pleasure in exploring) related to participants' route repetition accuracy, while their general cognitive performance (MoCA scores) related to their sketch map drawing accuracy. Individual factors such as cognitive functioning and wayfinding inclinations relate differently to older people's navigation performance, depending on the demands of the tasks used to test their environment learning.

The role of visuo-spatial abilities in environment learning from maps and navigation over the adult lifespan.

Visuo-spatial abilities have an important role in environment learning. The aim of the present study was to explore whether these abilities relate to spatial recall after learning an environment from a map or a video, and irrespective of the learner's age (from youth to old age). The study involved 431 participants from 25 to 84 years old, who were assessed for their visuo-spatial working memory, object-based mental rotation, and perspective-taking abilities. Then, they learned environments from a map and a video, and performed pointing, map drawing, and route repetition tasks after learning from each type of input. The resulting path models showed that age related to visuo-spatial abilities and (in some cases) to spatial accuracy, too. After accounting for age, visuo-spatial abilities also related to spatial recall performance, whatever the type of learning input, especially in pointing tasks and, to a lesser degree, in map drawing and route repetition tasks. Overall, the relationship between individual visuo-spatial abilities and environment learning relates to the learning input and the type of task used to assess recall. This relationship was found in a large and diverse sample of participants ranging from youth to old age.

Intelligence and working memory: evidence from administering the WAIS-IV to Italian adults and elderly.

The present study took advantage of data collected on more than 2100 Italian adult and elderly individuals during the standardization of the WAIS-IV to examine the relationship between working memory (WM) components and intelligence, and how age affects this relationship. Administering the WAIS-IV enabled us to obtain five different measures for assessing different aspects of WM, and a measure of General Ability (GA) strongly loading on the g-factor. The main results were as follows: (1) age-related impairments in WM are substantial, and they are partly similar and partly different for the various WM measures; (2) the relationship between the WM measures and the General Ability Index (GAI) varies, becoming stronger when the active control required by the WM task is higher; (3) comparing the WM-GAI relationships between different age groups reveals some similar patterns, as well as some specific effects that depend on the WM task considered.

The orientation of young and older adults' mental representations of their home town with familiar and new landmarks.

Familiarity with an environment produces refined mental representations in adults of all ages, but it is not clear whether these representations tend to have a north-up orientation and whether familiarity facilitates the learning of new spatial information, especially in ageing. Thirty-two young and 32 older adults studied a map of their home town that included familiar and new fictitious landmarks, then performed pointing tasks, some aligned with the cardinal points south-north (SN), and others counter-aligned, north-south (NS). A measure of visuo-spatial working memory (VSWM) and a questionnaire on pleasure in exploring were also administered. The results showed that performance was better when pointing SN than NS (alignment effect), whereas pointing performance for familiar landmarks was similar for SN and NS alignments (no alignment effect). No interaction involving age was found. VSWM emerged as a significant predictor of pointing performance. Spatial mental representations of familiar environments are elaborate and flexible as regards familiar landmarks, in both young and older adults; and a familiar layout does not seem to enhance older adults' spatial memory as regards new landmarks.

Assessment of Memory Impairment in Early Diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease.

Memory impairment has been considered as one of the earliest clinical hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease. This paper summarizes recent progress in the assessment of memory impairment in predementia stages. New promising approaches of memory assessment include evaluation of longitudinal cognitive changes, assessment of long-term memory loss, evaluation of subjective cognitive concerns and testing of other memory modalities, such as spatial memory. In addition, we describe new challenging memory tests based on memory binding paradigms that have been recently developed and are currently being validated.

Evidence for age-related deficits in object-location binding during place recognition.

Deciding whether a place is the same or different than places encountered previously is a common task in daily navigation which requires to develop knowledge about the locations of objects (object-location binding) and to recognize places from different perspectives. These abilities rely on hippocampal functioning which is susceptible to increasing age. Thus, the question of the present study is how they both together impact on place recognition in aging. Forty people aged 20-29, 44 aged 60-69, and 32 aged 70-79 were presented with places consisting of four different objects during the encoding phase. In the test phase, they were then presented with a second place and had to decide whether it was the same or different. Test places were presented from different perspectives (0°, 30°, 60°) and with different object conditions (same, a swap of two objects, a substitution with a novel object). The sensitivity for detecting changes (d') decreased from 20-29 to 60-69 and to 70-79 years old, and with increasing perspective shifts. Importantly, older adults were less sensitive to object swapping than to object substitution, while young participants did not show any difference. Overall, these results suggest specific age-related difficulties in object-location binding in the context of place recognition.

Improving Everyday Functioning in the Old-Old with Working Memory Training.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to assess gains related to working memory (WM) training, in the short and long term (9 months after the training), in abilities required in everyday life, and in cognitive measures in old-old adults (aged ≥ 75 years). METHODS: Thirty-two community-dwelling older adults (aged 75-85 years) were randomly assigned to a training or an active control group. In addition to testing for any specific gains in a WM task similar to the one used in the training (criterion task), we sought transfer effects to: 1) abilities involved in everyday life using objective performance-based tasks (the Everyday Problem Test [EPT] and the Timed Instrumental Activities of Daily Living [TIADL] scale; 2) tasks demanding the comprehension and recall of spatial information and pairing names with faces; and 3) a measure of inhibitory control, that is, recall errors (intrusion errors). RESULTS: Only the trained group showed specific gains in the criterion task, and in the TIADL in the short term. At follow-up, the trained group maintained gains in the criterion task, and showed transfer effects to everyday problem-solving (in the EPT), and in constructing spatial representations of an environment. The trained group also improved in a cognitive inhibition measure (intrusion errors) at follow-up. No such improvements were seen in the active control group. CONCLUSION: WM training may be a valid way to help old-old adults preserve at least some abilities related to everyday functioning.

Spatial mental representations: the influence of age on route learning from maps and navigation.

Experiencing an environment by navigating in it or reading a map (route and survey views, respectively) is a typical activity of everyday life. Previous research has demonstrated that aging coincides with a decline in spatial learning, but it is unclear whether this depends to some degree on how the learning conditions relate to the method used to assess the recall. The present study aims to shed light on this issue. Forty-six young, 43 young-old and 38 old-old adults learned outdoor environments from a map and a video, then performed sketch map and route repetition tasks. Participants were assessed on their visuo-spatial working memory (VSWM), and reported their self-assessed visuo-spatial inclinations. The results showed that young adults completed the sketch maps more accurately after learning from a map rather than a video. The same was true of the young-old participants (but not of the old-old), though their performance was not as good as the younger group's. The learning condition had no effect on the route repetition task, however, and only age-related differences emerged, with both older groups performing less well than the young adults. After controlling for learning condition and age group, VSWM and participants' reported propensity to explore places predicted their accuracy in both types of spatial task. The overall results, discussed in the light of spatial cognitive and aging models, show that learning condition (combined with recall tasks) and visuo-spatial factors influence spatial representations, even in aging.

Map Learning in Normal Aging: The Role of Individual Visuo-Spatial Abilities and Implications.

OBJECTIVE: The present study analyzes the age-related differences in map learning between young and normally-aging young-old and old-old adults in relation to individual visuo-spatial factors to specify which aspects of spatial learning are susceptible to aging. METHODS: Forty young, 40 young-old and 40 old-old participants performed a series of tasks to assess their visuo-spatial working memory (VSWM) and visuo-spatial (rotation) abilities, then they studied a map. To test their recall, they graphically reproduced the map in a freehand drawing, then performed a sketch map task (which involved placing a list of landmarks on a blank layout of the map) and a pointing task (adopting aligned and counter-aligned imaginary positions). RESULTS: The results showed that age-related differences depend on the type of recall task performed: in the pointing and freehand map-drawing tasks, the young-old and old-old performed worse than the young adults; but in the sketch map task, the young-old performed as well as the young adults and only the old-old's performance was worse than that of the other two age groups. Concerning the role of individual factors, VSWM and rotation abilities were found strongly involved in the pointing task (especially for counter-aligned pointing) and the freehand map-drawing task. CONCLUSION: Overall, these results suggest that different factors related to spatial (map) learning explain age-related differences in normal aging. The implications of the present results in normal and pathological aging, and for the purposes of clinical assessments and interventions, are discussed.

Performance-based everyday functional competence measures across the adult lifespan: the role of cognitive abilities.

BACKGROUND: The effects of age on the ability to manage everyday functioning, crucial to ensure a healthy aging process, have been rarely examined and when, self-report measures have been used. The aim of the present study was to examine age effects across the adult lifespan in everyday functioning with two performance-based measures: the Everyday Problems Test (EPT), and the Timed Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (TIADL) tasks. The role of some crucial cognitive abilities, i.e. working memory (WM), processing speed, reasoning, vocabulary, and text comprehension in the EPT and the TIADL were also assessed to see whether or not they have a similar influence (and to what extent) in accounting for age-related effects in these two performance-based measures. METHOD: Two hundred and seventy-six healthy participants, from 40 to 89 years of age were presented with the EPT, the TIADL, as well as WM, processing speed, reasoning, text comprehension, and vocabulary tasks. RESULTS: Path models indicated an indirect effect of age and education on the EPT, which was mediated by all the cognitive variables considered, with WM and reasoning being the strongest predictors of performance. An indirect quadratic effect of age, but not of education, was found on the TIADL score, and an accelerated decline in processing speed mediated the relationship between age and the TIADL score. CONCLUSION: This study revealed age-related effects in performance-based measures, which are mediated by different cognitive abilities depending on the measure considered. The findings highlight the importance of assessing everyday functioning even in healthy older adults.

Working Memory Training for Healthy Older Adults: The Role of Individual Characteristics in Explaining Short- and Long-Term Gains.

Objective: The aim of the present study was to explore whether individual characteristics such as age, education, vocabulary, and baseline performance in a working memory (WM) task-similar to the one used in the training (criterion task)-predict the short- and long-term specific gains and transfer effects of a verbal WM training for older adults. Method: Four studies that adopted the Borella et al. (2010) verbal WM training procedure were found eligible for our analysis as they included: healthy older adults who attended either the training sessions (WM training group), or alternative activities (active control group); the same measures for assessing specific gains (on the criterion WM task), and transfer effects (nearest on a visuo-spatial WM task, near on short-term memory tasks and far on a measure of fluid intelligence, a measure of processing speed and two inhibitory measures); and a follow-up session. Results: Linear mixed models confirmed the overall efficacy of the training, in the short-term at least, and some maintenance effects. In the trained group, the individual characteristics considered were found to contribute (albeit only modestly in some cases) to explaining the effects of the training. Conclusions: Overall, our findings suggest the importance of taking individual characteristics and individual differences into account when examining WM training gains in older adults.

Training working memory in older adults: Is there an advantage of using strategies?

The purpose of the present study was to test the efficacy of a working memory (WM) training in elderly people, and to compare the effects of a WM training based on an adaptive procedure with one combining the same procedure with the use of a strategy, based on the construction of visual mental images. Eighteen older adults received training with a WM task (the WM group), another 18 received the same WM training and were also taught to use a visual imagery strategy (the WM + Strategy group), and another 18 served as active controls. Training-related gains in the WM (criterion) task and transfer effects on measures of verbal and visuospatial WM, short-term memory (STM), processing speed, and reasoning were considered. Training gains and transfer effects were also assessed after 6 months. After the training, both the trained groups performed better than the control group in the WM criterion task, and maintained these gains 6 months later; they also showed immediate transfer effects on processing speed. The two trained groups also outperformed the control group in the long term in the WM tasks, in one of the STM tasks (backward span task), and in the processing speed measure. Long-term large effect sizes were found for all the tasks involving memory processes in the WM + Strategy group, but only for the processing speed task in the WM group. Findings are discussed in terms of the benefits and limits of teaching older people a strategy in combination with an adaptive WM training. (PsycINFO Database Record

How directions of route descriptions influence orientation specificity: the contribution of spatial abilities.

Previous studies found mental representations of route descriptions north-up oriented when egocentric experience (given by the protagonist's initial view) was congruent with the global reference system. This study examines: (a) the development and maintenance of representations derived from descriptions when the egocentric and global reference systems are congruent or incongruent; and (b) how spatial abilities modulate these representations. Sixty participants (in two groups of 30) heard route descriptions of a protagonist's moves starting from the bottom of a layout and headed mainly northwards (SN description) in one group, and headed south from the top (NS description, the egocentric view facing in the opposite direction to the canonical north) in the other. Description recall was tested with map drawing (after hearing the description a first and second time; i.e. Time 1 and 2) and South-North (SN) or North-South (NS) pointing tasks; and spatial objective tasks were administered. The results showed that: (a) the drawings were more rotated in NS than in SN descriptions, and performed better at Time 2 than at Time 1 for both types of description; SN pointing was more accurate than NS pointing for the SN description, while SN and NS pointing accuracy did not differ for the NS description; (b) spatial (rotation) abilities were related to recall accuracy for both types of description, but were more so for the NS ones. Overall, our results showed that the way in which spatial information is conveyed (with/without congruence between the egocentric and global reference systems) and spatial abilities influence the development and maintenance of mental representations.

Benefits in tasks related to everyday life competences after a working memory training in older adults.

OBJECTIVE: The impact of working memory (WM) training on everyday life functioning has rarely been examined, and it is not clear whether WM training gains are transferred to reasoning abilities. The aim of this study was to assess the efficacy of a verbal WM training in older adults, in terms of specific gains and transfer effects to everyday life and reasoning abilities. METHOD: Thirty-six community dwelling older adults (from 65 to 75 years of age) were randomly assigned to a training or an active control group. The specific gains in a WM task similar to the one trained were assessed. Transfer effects to everyday life and reasoning abilities were also examined using (i) objective performance-based tasks (the Everyday Problem Test and the Timed Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Scale) and (ii) the Cattell test and Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices, respectively. RESULTS: Only the trained group showed specific benefits and transfer effects to one of the everyday abilities measures (the Everyday Problem Test) and in the two reasoning tasks. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that WM training can positively impact cognitive functioning and, more importantly, older adults' abilities in everyday living. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Comprensión de textos en contextos desfavorecidos: El efecto de un programa de intervención en la habilidad para detectar errores e incongruencias en textos escritos / Reading comprehension in deprived social backgrounds: The effect of an intervention program based on the ability to detect errors and inconsistencies in written texts

La comprensión de textos es una de las competencias fundamentales para el desarrollo social y educativo de los seres humanos y constituye un tema esencial en la agenda educativa. Sin embargo, el estudio y la sistematización de los efectos de programas que buscan mejorar la comprensión lectora, sobre todo en el caso de alumnos pertenecientes a entornos sociales desfavorecidos, son todavía escasos. Se presentan los resultados de una intervención realizada en un grupo de alumnos de primero y segundo año de nivel medio y de contexto desfavorecido de una escuela de gestión social de la Provincia de Buenos Aires (Argentina). Dicha intervención estuvo basada en la habilidad metacognitiva de detectar errores e incongruencias, fundamental para el proceso de comprensión de un texto. Inicialmente fueron evaluados 50 adolescentes con un test de eficacia lectora, una prueba estandarizada de comprensión de textos y una prueba específica que evalúa la habilidad de detectar errores e incongruencias. Se conformó un grupo control con 23 participantes y un grupo experimental con los 27 restantes. El entrenamiento se llevó a cabo durante tres meses, con una frecuencia de una hora semanal y una vez finalizado, ambos grupos fueron reevaluados. Los resultados muestran un efecto positivo de la intervención sobre el grupo experimental, que alcanzó una diferencia estadísticamente significativa entre la cantidad de respuestas correctas de la evaluación inicial y de la evaluación final.

Reading comprehension is one of the core competencies for social and educational development of human beings and an essential topic in education agenda. However, the study and systematization of the effects of programs that seek to improve reading comprehension, especially in students from deprived social backgrounds, are still scarce. As a strategic skill that requires a conscious and active reader who can process the text and formulate a plan according to his or her purposes, reading comprehension must be flexible enough to adjust text demands. In this respect, a good reader should be aware of his or her cognitive abilities in order to understand a text successfully. Hence training in metacognitive skills improves significantly whole reading comprehension ability. Metacognitive training allows children to internalize and also anticipate the effective and useful strategies to be applied in each case. This paper aims to promote social inclusion to adolescents from a deprived social environment. To gain this goal, a program was designed considering, measurable, agreed and communicable targets, according to real deadlines that fit the raised population needs and realities. It presents the results of an intervention in a group of students of first and second year from secondary school from a deprived context in Gran Buenos Aires (Argentina). This intervention was based on the ability to detect errors and inconsistencies, fundamental to understanding texts. 50 adolescents were initially evaluated with a reading efficiency test, a standardized reading comprehension test and a specific proof to assess the ability to detect errors and inconsistencies. 23 students were part of the control group and 27, were involved in the experimental group. The one hour training was held weekly for three months and once this training was completed, both groups were reevaluated. The training involved twelve sessions which kept the same structure. First the ability was orally introduced. A video, a song, a painting, language games, among other resources, were used to include an error (or more) and / or a mismatch (or more). Then, the students altogether discussed, orally, the strategies used to resolve de introduction activity in order to detect these errors and inconsistencies. In third place, an understanding activity that included a situation that supposed an error or inconsistency was introduced. A fourth step was to present a written activity to strengthen the target ability, asking the children to produce a similar situation. The session finally ended with a pooling of production. This scheme was repeated over the 12 sessions by modifying the content thereof. The last two activities were carried out in pairs to stimulate mutual learning. In every session the information was presented with Power point Program, in differentiates place from, especially assigned for the interventions. The results show a positive effect of the intervention on the experimental group, whose performance achieved a statistically significant difference between the number of correct responses from the initial to the second assessment. One-sample t test was applied to compare the means of performance from the same population before and after the intervention. For the experimental group, statistically significant differences between means were checked before and after the intervention in both variables. time and right answers. For the control group, which received no intervention but had traditional instruction, a t test showed that the difference in performance between the first and second evaluation was not significant.

The relevance of memory sensitivity for psychological well-being in aging.

PURPOSE: In the present study, we investigated the relationship between memory sensitivity, which describes a positive attitude to autobiographical memory and the presence of behaviors devoted to saving memories of the personal past, and psychological well-being; in particular, we tested whether their relationship would change across age groups. METHODS: Three hundred eighteen participants, divided in four groups: young to middle-aged adults (20-55 years old), young-old adults (65-74 years old), old adults (75-84 years old), and old-old adults (85-97 years old), completed questionnaires on their memory sensitivity and psychological well-being. RESULTS: Memory sensitivity slightly decreased with age and had a positive relationship with psychological well-being that was critically moderated by age. Specifically, the relationship between memory sensitivity and psychological well-being became increasingly stronger as age increased. CONCLUSIONS: While memory sensitivity may have little or no particular relevance in the case of young to middle-aged adults, it has an increasingly important positive relationship with psychological well-being at later age. It is thus suggested that memory sensitivity represents a dimension that should be considered in the study and interventions on quality of life in the elderly population.

Environment learning using descriptions or navigation: The involvement of working memory in young and older adults.

This study examined age-related differences between young and older adults in the involvement of verbal and visuo-spatial components of working memory (WM) when paths are learned from verbal and visuo-spatial inputs. A sample of 60 young adults (20-30 years old) and 58 older adults (60-75 years old) learned two paths from the person's point of view, one displayed in the form of a video showing the path, the other presenting the path in a verbal description. During the learning phase, participants concurrently performed a verbal task (articulatory suppression, AS group), or a visuo-spatial task (spatial tapping, ST group), or no secondary task (control, C group). After learning each path, participants completed tasks that involved the following: (1) recalling the sequential order and the location of landmarks; and (2) judging spatial sentences as true or false (verification test). The results showed that young adults outperformed older adults in all recall tasks. In both age groups performance in all types of task was worse in the AS and ST groups than in the C group, irrespective of the type of input. Overall, these findings suggest that verbal and visuo-spatial components of WM underpin the processing of environmental information in both young and older adults. The results are discussed in terms of age-related differences and according to 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.