Performance but not acquisition of skill learning is severely impaired in the elderly.

A battery of cognitive tests, specifically designed to assess verbal and skill learning, was administered to healthy volunteer subjects of different ages. Although there were age-related declines in initial and terminal performance in both a pursuit rotor and a mirror reading task, the increase in performance with practice on these tasks was little affected by age. Recall, but not recognition, of verbal material was also impaired in the elderly, as were some measures of frequency estimation. These findings are compatible with the contention that, although acquisition of declarative tasks, which requires conscious processing, is impaired in the elderly, acquisition of nondeclarative tasks, which can be learned without conscious awareness, is not affected by age. However, classical conditioning may be an exception to this generalization for reasons that are at the present time unknown.

Concomitant eyeblink and heart rate classical conditioning in young, middle-aged, and elderly human subjects.

Pavlovian heart rate (HR) and eyeblink (EB) conditioning were assessed in 4 groups of Ss who differed in age: young = 19-33 years, young middle-aged = 35-48 years, old middle-aged = 50-63 years, and old = 66-78 years. A 100-ms corneal airpuff was the unconditioned stimulus and a 600-ms tone was the conditioned stimulus. A nonassociative control group received explicitly unpaired tone and airpuff presentations. All Ss were studied for 2 100-trial sessions separated by approximately 7 days. An impairment in acquisition of both the EB and HR responses occurred in the old and middle-age Ss, but all age groups showed significantly greater conditioning than did the control group. Slight increases in performance resulted from a 2nd session of training. These findings suggest an age-related impairment in a general associative process.

Concomitant heart rate and eyeblink Pavlovian conditioning in human subjects as a function of interstimulus interval.

Pavlovian heart rate and eyeblink conditioning were simultaneously assessed in human subjects. Tone durations of 0.6, 1.1, and 2.1 s were employed in separate groups of subjects as the conditioned stimulus. A 100-ms corneal airpuff, which served as the unconditioned stimulus, overlapped the last 100 ms of the tone in each group, thus producing interstimulus intervals of 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 s. Other groups of pseudoconditioning subjects received explicitly unpaired tone and airpuff presentations of identical durations but in a pseudorandom sequence so that they never occurred together. The best eyeblink conditioning was observed in the group with the .5-s interstimulus interval, although the 1.0-s group also demonstrated some evidence of eyeblink conditioning. The group with the 2.0-s interstimulus interval showed a lower overall rate of conditioned response occurrence and the highest rate of pseudoconditioned responding. The conditioned heart rate response in all three conditioning groups consisted of cardiac decelerations, but tone-evoked cardiac accelerations were observed in the pseudoconditioning groups. The magnitude of the cardiac deceleration was comparable in all three conditioning groups.

Some determinants of attrition in prospective studies on aging.

Demographic measures, psychosocial variables, and objective and subjective measures of physical impairment were assessed in elderly men twice at intervals of 12 to 18 months. Canonical discriminant function analysis of the relationship between these predictor variables on the first testing and whether participants (a) returned for retesting, (b) did not return because of apparent disinterest, or (c) did not return because of illness or death, revealed two significant canonical variates. The first, characterized by decreased mental and physical capacity, discriminated between the deceased/ill group and the other two groups. The second was characterized by decreased social interaction and life satisfaction, and increased life events, and distinguished between the disinterested group and the other two groups. However, both groups that failed to return for retesting showed evidence of impaired physical health and a general disengagement from social and personal activities, compared to the retested group.

Attitudes towards aging and physical health.

Brief narrative descriptions of four hypothetical individuals who differed in age and physical health were developed and presented to people who differed in age and sex. Each participant read only one of the four profiles. After reading the profile, the participant rated the profiled individual on the Rosencrantz and McNevin (1969) semantic differential scale of attitudes towards aging. Respondents were divided into a young group (29 years or younger), a middle-aged group (30-49 years), and an old group (50 years and older). No participant gender effects were found. All three age groups rated the older and younger profiles of persons in poor health more negatively than those describing healthy persons on each of the three dimensions of the Rosencrantz-McNeven scale. Older respondents tended to view the younger healthy profile and to a lessor extent the younger-sick profile more positively than the older profiles, but the young and middle-aged respondents viewed the older profiles more positively than the younger profiles on all three dimensions of the scale. These findings suggest that (a) a major component of negative attitudes toward the aged may be related to the more likely occurrence of physical illness in this age group, and (b) more negative attitudes toward the aged are more likely to occur in older than younger respondents regardless of health status.

The Older Americans Resources and Services interview and the medically disabled elderly.

To determine which dimensions of the Older Americans Resources and Services (OARS) would best predict the status of the medically disabled elderly, veteran inpatients, outpatients, and nonpatient volunteers were administered the multidimensional functional assessment portion of the OARS. To determine whether any of the OARS subscales would be related to age-related functional deficits in this population, serial learning and differential reaction time were also assessed in these three groups of participants. Inpatients showed significantly more impaired ratings on all five of the OARS subscales than the outpatients and nonpatients, while outpatients were more impaired than nonpatients on two of the subscales (mental health and activities of daily living). However, physical health and mental health were the only OARS subscales consistently related to serial learning and reaction time performance. These data provide information about the validity of the OARS when used to assess the medically disabled elderly, and suggest a profile of variables that may contribute to overall dysfunctioning in the medically disabled elderly person.

Physical health correlates of attitudes toward aging in the elderly.

Attitudes toward aging were assessed in three groups of elderly men (age 65-85), including: hospitalized veterans, veteran outpatients, and a group of non-hospitalized "healthy" veteran volunteers, using the Rosencranz and McNevin Semantic Differential Scale. Social objects rated included an "old man", a "young man", and the participant, himself, ("self"). Attitudes toward "old men" were significantly more negative than attitudes toward "young men" in all three groups. In addition, significant group by "object-rated" interactions were obtained on the autonomous/dependent and instrumental/ineffective dimensions of this scale. These interactions were attributable to a more negative "self" rating by the hospitalized group. These results suggest that within the population studied, older persons in poor health tend to view themselves more like the stereotyped "old person" than do healthy old people, who tend to perceive themselves as being more like a "young person".

A comparison of physical health and psychosocial variables as predictors of reaction time and serial learning performance in elderly men.

Choice reaction time and serial learning tasks were studied in three groups of elderly men (aged 65 to 85), including (a) hospitalized veterans, (b) veteran outpatients, and (c) nonhospitalized veteran volunteers. Demographic variables, life satisfaction, and attitudes toward aging, as well as objective and subjective measures of physical impairment, were assessed in each group. The three groups differed on both reaction time and serial learning measures. Multivariate analysis revealed that objective physical health assessments were the best predictors of reaction time performance, whereas subjective assessments best predicted serial learning performance. More negative attitudes and life satisfaction were associated with impaired physical health, but these psychosocial measures were poor predictors of behavioral performance.

Interaction of physio-medical and psychosocial variables in age-related functional impairments.

Frequency of social interaction was studied in a group of twenty-five veterans who were temporary residents on a VA Nursing Home Care Unit. Serial learning tasks with a 4 sec. and 10 sec. exposure period and simple and choice reaction time tasks were also studied. At the conclusion of testing, attitudes toward aging, life satisfaction, and physical and mental impairment were assessed. "Social Activity" was positively correlated with each of four measures of serial learning, but was uncorrelated with either choice or simple reaction time. "Social Activity" was also correlated with more positive attitudes toward aging and with increased life satisfaction. However, certain aspects of physical and mental impairment were also related to task performance and level of social activity, suggesting that the psychosocial-behavior relationships observed may be partly mediated by a third factor, that is, the health status of the participant.

Age preferences for professional helpers.

Persons between the ages of 16 to 91 years (N = 621) were asked to indicate the age of the physician nurse, policeman, lawyer, clergyman, and teacher they prefer when they need a service. For all occupations except clergyman there was a relationship between the age of the respondent and preferred age of the professional. Older individuals preferred older service providers with one exception, their physician. Highly educated respondents preferred younger physicians. Implications for providing services to older individuals are discussed.

Learning and reaction time performance in older veterans: relationship to attitudes and life satisfaction.

Young (age 20-35) and old (age 55-70) veterans were tested on serial learning and reaction time tasks. Life satisfaction, attitudes toward older people, and physical and mental status were also assessed. Younger veterans showed better performance on both learning and psychomotor tasks than did older veterans. However, positive attitudes toward aging, and greater life satisfaction were associated with better performance on the behavioral tasks in the older group. Certain aspects of physical and mental status were also associated with better learning and reaction time scores in the elderly. These results suggest that age-related behavioral decrements may be related to psychosocial variables but that physio-medical factors may play a mediating role.

Peripheral autonomic changes accompanying learning and reaction time performance in older people.

Heart rate, blood pressure, and electrodermal activity were assessed in old (55 to 70) and young (20 to 35) veterans during their performance on serial learning and reaction time tasks. More older than younger subjects exhibited systolic blood pressure increases during the tasks; baseline heart rate was also slower in the older subjects. However, the phasic electrodermal response of the older Ss during the reaction time task was of smaller magnitude than that of the young Ss, and there were no phasic HR differences between the groups. Learning and psychomotor performance of the older subjects who revealed systolic BP pressor responses was significantly better than that of those who showed depressor responses, but this relationship was not obtained in the younger subjects. These relationships were more pronounced on easier than on more difficult tasks.

Heart rate and skin conductance during cognitive processes as a function of age.

Heart rate (HR) and skin conductance (SC) were measured in males ranging in age from 23 to 87 years while they were performing mental arithmetic tasks, subtractions, and during multiple trial free recall. Performance on the arithmetic tasks was not affected by age. HR but not SC showed greater changes from basal levels in young subjects. Free recall was greater in young than in old subjects, and changes in HR were again greater in the young subjects. During intertrial rest periods HR returned t9 basal levels in young but not in old subjects. These changes are similar to those seen in older people after physical exercise. Correlations between HR and SC changes during arithmetic performance and during free recall indicated that response stereotypy is to some extent age dependent.