Mind Wandering In Older Adults: An Experimental Study

Quadagno (2014) discusses ways cognitive abilities differ from young-adults, middle-old adults and oldest old adults. Cognitive decline can also be affected by conditions such as stroke, depression, diabetes, auditory, and vision problems. Older adults may also encounter age related cognitive decline in their daily lives. Cognitive abilities such as processing speed, episodic memory, working memory and dual task processing are abilities that researchers are aiming to improve in older adults (Basak, et al, 2008; Quadagno, 2014).

• Reading now means skipping and skimming; five minutes on the same Web page is considered an eternity. This is not reading as Marilynne Robinson described it: the encounter with a second self in the silence of mental solitude. (The end of solitude, pg. 4)

According to Marlynn Wei from Psychology Today, “mindfulness helps to get ‘unstuck’ [from negative thoughts]”. In her article “Mindfulness Quiets Unhelpful Thoughts”, she mentions how it “encourages a lack of attachment to thoughts that wander through [the] mind.”

I. Introduction A. Attention Device—What’s to know about Alzheimer’s disease 1. "It occurred to me that at one point it was like I had two diseases- one was Alzheimer's and the other was knowing I had Alzheimer's." Terry Pratchett B. Thesis Statement—Alzheimer’s disease and some of the affects 1. The most common type of dementia, Alzheimer's, accounts for about 60 to 80 percent of dementia cases in the United States 2.

Intellect also changes as individual’s age. You have to realize that every individual has different levels and areas of cognitive skill because of factors like culture, as Gardner studied, and gender, as discovered by Schaie in the 1957 Seattle Longitudinal Study (Berger, 2014, p. 447-448). Your experience of intellectual change may also be different from your peers. Although you will continue to grow intellectually, you will not be able to expand your intellect as much as when you were younger (Berger, 2014, p. 446). Also, as you age, you may find yourself focusing on one task at a time, as your brain has a harder time being attentive to, processing, and juggling several tasks at once (Berger, 2014, p. 453). Furthermore, as was found by the

Aging is a natural process of life however, studies show that there are some age-related decline in cognitive development. As a person grows older some brain cell dies, shrink, or weaken and cause some decline in brain functions. Some cognitive processes include attention, working memory, long-term memory, perception, and executive control. The material will explain the effect of aging on cognitive development by providing scholarly research proof.

Thesis: All of this is quite fascinating but according to neurologist Adam Gazzaley of the University of California, San Francisco multitasking is harder with age. Meaning memory has a part in multitasking as to being able to switch off certain networks of the brain responsible for processing information.

Our daily task requires us to pay full attention towards them, with a full sense of concious. During those daily tasks our attention is divided among our surroundings. It gives us the ability to multitask, as we can foucus on multiple subjects at the same time. However, this ability declines as we age. Older adults have a difficcult time processing information in the visual periphery. Mnay researches have been done to compare young adult and older adults functional field of View (FFOV). Though the expectation for the results of the research was not met, by measuring the retinal area from which observers can collect information necessary to make specific judgements, we can determine the differnce between young adults and old adults attention span. The experiement applied the redundant target effect to compare it with single-target conditions. Through the experiemnets psychologists were only able to discover that genral cognition in older adults was

Some day five years ago, I was sitting in your common inspirational filled, colored poster decorated sixth grade math class at Nativity of Mary Private School. We were learning about multiplying and dividing fractions when I look across the room to spot Alex Lopez chewing on his fingernails and zoning out. As I saw this behavior I began to notice that Alex did this in almost every class, and then he would snap back into reality like there was no change in his state of mind. His daydreaming rituals would occur everyday, starting with nail biting and ending with a reality check. I became a wallflower and started watching everyone’s behaviors, I soon realized that praised Alex Lopez, was not the only one committing this act.

Many studies have been broad, studying the vocabulary, reasoning, memory, and speed of the person, but zoning in on one thing specific may lead to further understanding. Studying the effects of cognitive aging in relation to memory possibly will open so many more areas of study. Studying specific age groups could also be helpful when attempting to understand cognitive aging as a whole. Learning about how speed, memory, vocabulary, and reasoning all work within a child, 10-15 years old, might be helpful when comparing that data to that information of an adult. between 50-60 years

Attention is known as a behavioral and cognitive process of selectively concentrating awareness on a specific object, issue, or activity, while not focusing on other potential stimuli from the environment. While the human brain has great capabilities for processing information, it also has limited capacity. A person cannot attend to all the information being received through all the five senses at one time. And this capacity is reduced as people get older. Older people tend to have decreased brain activity in the the brain areas that

The purpose of this study was to determine how the difference in age can affect the susceptibility to proactive interference; the interference of past material inhibiting one’s full potential to learn new material, by using the Stroop effect. This study was designed to

The research aims at determining the affect of dementia on the lives of individuals and how it impacts on their social interactions. The research will also identify the ways in which aging individuals can refrain themselves from falling prey to this disease. It will highlight some important information for caregivers who will better understand this disease and will know how to deal with people who have this disease. As we all

Studies on vigilance and sustained attention have been a widely studied part of psychology since the Second World War. This is because it was found that people monitoring radars for enemy ships experienced what is now known as vigilance decrement. That is when the ability of a subject to detect an abnormality during a task which primarily displays a “normal” screen. In the case of WWII radar monitors, this was to detect when an enemy submarine entered the radar. (Helton, W. S. & Russell, P. N. (2012). ) After a short time, typically 20-30 minutes but in certain cases as little as 5 minutes, vigilance decrement can occur. (Caggio, D. M., & Parasuraman, R. (2004)). There are two main theories commonly cited to explain this phenomenon, mindless theory and resource theory. Resource theory says that the vigilance decrement is due to the exhaustion of brain resources required to maintain focus on the task. Mindless theory simply explains vigilance depletion as being caused by disengagement from the task due to boredom. (Helton, W. S. & Russell, P. N. (2012).) The two theories explain the same phenomenon much differently; resource theory says it’s caused in part by cognitive overload, while mindless theory suggests it’s caused by cognitive under-load causing boredom. (Helton, W. S., & Russell, P. N. (2015)). Resource theory is strongly supported by a wide array of evidence from behavioural studies, mental workload studies, and brain imaging studies. When the

To identify and rule-out the possible causes for Mdm Soh’s reading difficulties and irritability, it is necessary to differentiate between normal changes with ageing and illness. As the human body ages, it is normal for certain cognitive functions to decline. In an older person of Madam Soh’s age, an individual of 65 years old may read at a reduced speed due to a slower reaction or response time as compared to a younger person. However, the process of reading in itself remains relatively stable into old age. The main reason for this is because the skill of knowing how to read is associated with the procedural memory which declines the least and is generally not affected with normal physiological aging. For this reason, Mdm Soh’s reading difficulty may instead be a sign of illness and should be explored further. Another possible reason associated with normal changes with ageing that could be linked to Mdm Soh’s reading difficulties is visual problems. Presbyopia is a normal part of aging that occurs because the eye has difficulty focusing light on to the retina as a result of stiffening of the lens and reduced flexibility of the muscle fibres around the lens. This can