Title: Late%20Adulthood:%20Cognitive%20Development
1Part VIII
Chapter Twenty-Four
- Late Adulthood Cognitive Development
The Usual Information Processing After Age
65 The impaired Dementia The Optimal New
Cognitive Development
2Late Adulthood Cognitive Development
- By the end of adulthood, physical impairment,
reduced perception, decreased energy, and slower
reactions take an increasing toll. - Late-adulthood cognition is too complex to be
captured in a brief social conversation.
3The Usual Information Processing After Age 65
- Information-Processing Approach
- breaking down cognition into the steps of
- input (sensing)
- storage (memory)
- program (control process)
- output
- a perspective that compares human thinking
processes to computer analysis of data.
4The Usual Information Processing After Age 65
- Sensing and Perceiving
- stimuli becomes information, perceived by the
mind, which must cross the sensory threshold
5The Usual Information Processing After Age 65
- Attention Deficits
- sensory-input problemspeople miss information
without realizing it - cognition depends on perception, and perception
depends on sensation - one way to predict an older persons intellect
may be to measure vision, hearing, or smell
6The Usual Information Processing After Age 65
- Interference
- is thought to be a major impediment to effective
and efficient cognition in the elderly - reduced sensory input affects cognition by
increasing the effects of interference
7The Usual Information Processing After Age 65
- Memory
- storage refers to memory in the
information-processing model of cognition
8The Usual Information Processing After Age 65
- Working Memory
- the capacity to keep information in mind while
processing it, evaluating, calculating, inferring
etc. - functions as both a repository and a processor
- Dual-Task Deficit
- performance of one task is impeded by
interference from the simultaneous performance of
another task
9The Usual Information Processing After Age 65
- Long-Term Memory
- the component of the information processing
system in which virtually limitless amounts of
information can be stored indefinitely - knowledge base
- a body of knowledge in a particular area that
makes it easier to master new information in that
area
10The Usual Information Processing After Age 65
- Selective Memory
- in areas not related to expertise, selective
deficits in long-term memory appear
11The Usual Information Processing After Age 65
- Control Processes
- part of the information-processing system that
regulates the analysis and flow of information - memory and retrieval strategies, selective
attention, and rules or strategies for problem
solving are all useful control processes
12The Usual Information Processing After Age 65
- Analysis
- an aspect of impaired analysis is that the
elderly are more likely to stick to preconceived
ideas rather than consider and change their minds
13The Usual Information Processing After Age 65
- Retrieval
- another control process, the ability to recall
the name of childhood acquaintance, worsens with
age
14Reminding People of What They Know
- Priming
- preparation that makes it easier to perform some
actionretrieval from memory is easier if we are
given a clue - Explicit Memory
- is easy to retrieve on demand (as in a specific
test), usually with words - involves consciously learned words, data, and
concepts - Implicit Memory
- unconscious or automatic memory-- stored via
habits, emotional responses, routine procedures,
and various sensations
15Brain Slowdown
- the elderly react more slowly than young adults
- reduced production of neurotransmitters
- speed is crucial for many aspects of cognition,
especially working memory, since information
stays in working memory for only a short time
16Staying Healthy and Alert
- secondary agingillness and conditions that
affect one person but not another - is a major reason for the remarkable variation in
intellectual ability between one older person and
another
17The Usual Information Processing After Age 65
- Ageism
- cognitive decline is rooted not in the older
persons body and brain but in the surrounding
social context - cultural attitudes can lead directly to age
differences in cognition
18The Usual Information Processing After Age 65
- Stereotype Threat
- does most harm when individuals internalize other
peoples prejudices and react with helplessness - because they have internalized the idea that old
age always bring dementia, that fear may become a
stereotype threat, undermining normal thinking
19The Usual Information Processing After Age 65
- Ageism Among Scientist
- scientists measure age differences in memory in
the same way they studied memory in generalin
laboratories - these factors work against older adults, who tend
to perform best in familiar settings
20The Usual Information Processing After Age 65
21The Impaired Dementia
- the pathological loss of brain function
literally, out of mind, referring to severely
impaired judgment - irreversible loss of intellectual functioning
caused by organic brain damage or disease - becomes more common with age, but it is abnormal
and pathological even in the very old
22The Impaired Dementia
- Alzheimers Disease (AD)
- the most common cause of dementia, characterized
by gradual deterioration of memory and
personality - marked by the formation of plaques of
beta-amyloid protein and tangles in the brain
23Risk Factors for Alzheimers Disease
- gender, ethnicity, and especially age affect a
persons odds of developing Alzheimers disease - fewer East Asians than Europeans develop the
disorder - less common among those of African descent, but
life expectancy is far lower in Africa
24Alzheimers Stages
- Usually runs through a progressive course of five
identifiable stages, beginning with forgetfulness
and ending in death
25Alzheimers Stages
- 1 confused with normal aging
- 2 generalized confusiondeficits in
concentration and short-term memory - 3 memory loss becomes dangerous
- 4 need full-time care
- 5 unresponsive, no longer talking
- stages take 10 to 15 years
26Strokes
- the second most common cause of dementia
- repeated brain damage leads to
- vascular dementia (VaD), also called
multi-infarct dementia (MID) - characterized by sporadic, and progressive, loss
of intellectual functioning caused by repeated
infarcts, or temporary obstructions of blood
vessels
27Subcotical Dementias
- Begin with impairments in motor ability (which is
governed by the subcortex) and produce cognitive
impairment in later stages - Parkinsons disease, Huntingtons disease, and
Multiple Sclerosis - Parkinsons Disease
- characterized by muscle tremor and rigidity
caused by a reduction of dopamine production in
the brain
28Reversible Dementia
- caused by medication, inadequate nutrition,
alcohol abuse, depression, or other mental
illness can sometimes be reversed
29Reversible Dementia
- Overmedication and Undernourishment
- without considering interaction, many drugs
commonly taken by the elderly slow down mental
processes - inadequate nutrition is connected to
overmedication, many medications reduce
absorption of vitamins
30The Impaired Dementia
- Psychological Illness
- elderly people have a lower incidence of
psychological disordersthe rate of anxiety,
antisocial personality disorder, bipolar
disorder, schizophrenia, and depression are lower
after age 65
31The Impaired Dementia
- Prevention and Treatment
- there is no cure or prevention for dementia
- many lifestyle factors that slow down senescence
also delay the onset of dementia
32The Optimal New Cognitive Development
- older people are more interested than young in
the arts, in children, and in human experiences - the elderly are social witnesses to life
- aware of interdependent of the generations
- there are gains and losses at every stage of life
33The Optimal New Cognitive Development
- Aesthetic Sense and Creativity
- elderly people seem to gain a greater
appreciation of nature and aesthetic experience
34The Optimal New Cognitive Development
- The Life Review
- an examination of ones own part in life, engaged
in by many elderly people
35The Optimal New Cognitive Development
- Wisdom
- a cognitive perspective characterized by a broad,
practical, comprehensive approach to lifes
problems, reflecting timeless truths rather than
immediate expediencyseems to be more common in
the elderly than in the young