Processing Speed Theory Paper

Selective memory retrieval is research to try and recall events that occurred in your past life. In their studies, they used sixty-four participants between the age of (20-35) for the younger generation and for the 64 participants their age was over sixty. They then proceeded to show each group certain images to remember. Both groups showed a very poor retrieval to the images portrayed. For the most part, this initial test between the young and older ages was unsuccessful. Since, this experiment didn’t go as planned they came up with a new process. That process being to have a much wider group is participants. Having the participants between the age of (40-85) drastically changed the results of the experiment. Critically, the size of the beneficial but now the detrimental effect of retrieval decreased with age and this age-related decline was mediated by individuals working memory capacity, as measured by the complex operation span task. (Aslan, A., Schlichting, A., John, T., & Bauml, K. T., 2015) In this study it showed that there was an early decline in the older generation memory compared to the younger

There are people who think that older adults are not capable of learning new information because of the number of neurons in their brain decline as they age. In the PBS video “Stealing Time”, the old cage potato rats were given a change of scene with an enriched environment and the results were that their dendrites grew and made new synaptic connections where there were none before. These rats were better on future tasks than the old rats that were not given a change of scene. When older adults are doing a task in a laboratory setting they are less efficient at processing the information presented to them and their reaction time is slower. “Older adults show more brain activity between the prefrontal cortex and the medial temporal lobe than

As adults age their executive functioning start to slow down. The structural changes in the prefrontal cortex

Cognitive aging is the term to describe changes in cognition with age. While Salthouse (2004) found that with cognitive aging comes cognitive decline regardless of the individual, Hayden and partners (2011) found that most (65%) elderly persons showed slow decline that does not substantially affect abilities, 27% experienced moderate decline, and only 8% showed substantial cognitive decline. These new findings show that in fact there may be individual variability when it comes to cognitive aging. One factor shown to affect cognitive aging is race (Glymour and Manly, 2008). Thus, in this paper we will review and analyze findings pertaining to cognitive aging as related by race to better understand this relationship and will also discuss suggestions for future research.

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).

Older adults need the list to be presented at a slower speed in order to improve recall. This is because older adults experience a slowing down in the speed of processing. This is mostly due to the fact older adults also experience a decrease in the amount of dopamine, serotonin, and acetylcholine. These three are all important in high cognitive functioning.

A. S., Sozda, C. N., Dotson, V. M., & Perlstein, W. M. (2016). An Event-Related Potential Investigation of the Effects of Age on Alerting, Orienting, and Executive Function. Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience. Retrieved from http://db16.linccweb.org/login?url=http://go.galegroup.com.db16.linccweb.org/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&u=lincclin_mdcc&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA457534628&asid=eb0543c891701af28b79b58b05539847

Age associated declines in cognitive processes are important to the understanding of the human mind. This study investigates the relationship between ageing and short term memory in particular, by first exploring current cognitive and neuroscientific research involving concepts such as short term/working memory, long term memory and ageing, and secondly, by means of a short term memory experiment involving verbal and numerical stimuli, that was administered to two age groups- 20 to 40 year old adults and 50 to 70 year olds. The results of the experiment were then analysed using the ANOVA statistical software programme. The results did not conclusively show age related decline

Data were analyzed using a linear regression model where the average time taken to notice a change was used as a dependent variable, and the age was used as an independent variable. This analysis revealed that there is not a significant difference between age and the amount of time that it took any individual to notice a change, F (1, 224) = 3.52, p = .06. Results show that there was an insignificant increase of .27 seconds in time taken to notice the change between ages. Age explained 1% of the variance in time taken to notice the change in stimuli, r2 = .01.

As we age, it is natural for cognitive deterioration, however if this deterioration significantly impairs one’s independence, a diagnosis of major neurocognitive disorder is given There are currently 24 to 36 million people with neurocognitive disorders around the world, with 4.6 million new cases emerging each year (Hollingworth, P., Harold, D., Jones, L., Owen, M. J., & Williams, J. (2011); Ames, D., Chiu, E., Lindsesay, J., & Shulman, K. I., 2010). Those suffering with a neurocognitive disorder experience a significant decline in facets of cognitive function such as: memory and learning, attention, perceptual motor skills, planning and decision making, language ability, or social cognition (APA, 2013, 2012). Alzheimer’s disease is the most

289). In part B, the person was given 420 seconds to connect randomly distributed numbers and letters in alpha-numeric sequence (Carlson et al., 2012, p. 289). Through the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test-Revised (HVLT-R) would reveal both immediate learning and delayed recall. In this case the total possible number of words answered is 36, the person was then given 15 minutes to remember as many words as possible, most remembered 12. Carlson et al. employed Cox proportional hazard model, “to examine the frequency and variety of activity predicted time to cognitive impairment on each of the four cognitive outcomes” (TMT A, TMT B, HVLT immediate, and HVLT delayed recall) (Carlson et al., 2012, p. 289). Over the 9.5-year interval, the percentages were the following: TMT, Part A > 81 s; TMT, Part B > 225 s; HVLT Intermediate recall < 16 words; HVLT Delayed recall < 4 words; and MMSE score < 23 (Carlson et al., 2012, p. 289). The study found that indeed variety in cognitive activities can reduce the risk of impairment such as: dementia and cognitive aging by 8%-11% (Carlson et al., 2012, p.

Older adults are thus slower in receiving information through sensory receptors, slower in transmitting, processing, and interpreting information, and are slower in acting upon it” (Shulman, Silverman, & Golden).

There are also cognitive changes during middle adulthood. There is a mixed pattern of positive and negative changes in cognitive abilities. Processing speed starts to decrease during this time period however crystallized thought does not decline until older age (pg. 456). Working memory begins to decline however semantic memory continues to increase as we learning throughout our older years (ph 456). Usually most memory decline is during older age and can be attributed to Alzheimer’s disease of dementia.

Cognitive aging is commonly labeled strictly as memory and only found in “some people”. However, this is not true. The knowledge of cognitive aging has grown immensely, but there is still much to be learned. The surface has only been scratched with many more questions to be answered. Cognitive aging is worthy of study and effects everyone, but there is also much more is still to be learned.

Aging brings many behavioral, physiological and psychological changes in human. As many older adults surpass young adults they experience deterioration in cognitive abilities such as memory loss, inability to perceive, reason, and understand as they age. In human brain, capacity is involved in person’s ability to understand and interpret the information presented to them. According to the text book Adult Development and Aging: Biopsychosocial perspective Canadian edition (2015), capacity is referred to as a context-dependent and fluid because, a person may lack capacity for making complicated decision, but they still may have a capacity to outperform simple decisions and their cognitive abilities may diminish as they age (Whitbourne, Whitbourne, & Konnert, 2015, p. 62). In the construct of capacity for any research project, a researcher must receive an informed consent in order to