Janessa O. Carvalho

A Life Course Model of Cognitive Activities, Socioeconomic Status, Education, Reading Ability, and Cognition

OBJECTIVES: To cross‐sectionally quantify the contribution of proxy measures of cognitive reserve reflective of the lifespan, such as education, socioeconomic status (SES), reading ability, and cognitive activities, in explaining late‐life cognition.

Emotional complexity in younger, midlife, and older adults.

Questions pertaining to emotional complexity in adult development are being pursued from a number of vantage points. The current studies sought to clarify the study of emotional complexity by comparing and contrasting 2 dominant perspectives on emotional complexity in different age groups (i.e., covariation and absolute-level approaches). Results indicate that emotional complexity is a multifaceted construct and that methodology will impact substantive findings and developmental trends that emerge from the data. Recommendations and considerations for future research are discussed, including, for example, within- versus cross-domain ideas of emotional complexity.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Frontal Systems Behavior Scale (FrSBe)

The Frontal Systems Behavior Scale (FrSBe) is a 46-item questionnaire that measures behaviors associated with frontal subcortical deficits (apathy, disinhibition, and executive dysfunction) in adult neurologic populations. Based on findings from a previous exploratory factor analysis on the scale, the current study used confirmatory factor analysis to explore and potentially improve on the measurement model fit of current FrSBe scores. Model fit indices and reliabilities (measured using internal consistency reliability) were compared in the original and in several alternative models. The original scale demonstrated a generally good fitting model, although the best fitting model (referred to as the reduced model) removed eight items from the original measure and modestly improved model fit over the original FrSBe. Strong reliability was found in both versions. Results from the current study provide a critical first step in a potential FrSBe scale revision.

Emotion and executive functioning: The effect of normal mood states on fluency tasks

Induced positive affect (PA) can improve verbal fluency performance, and induced negative affect (NA) can increase design fluency performance (Bartolic, Basso, Schefft, Glauser, & Titanic-Schefft, 1999). Building on this, the current study investigated associations between everyday mood states and executive functions. Participants (N = 74, mean age = 51.19 years) completed verbal and design fluency tasks and a self-report affect task. PA was associated with better verbal fluency performance, although NA was not associated with design fluency. Variations in everyday PA may be associated with cognitive performance, whereas greater shifts in NA might be needed to establish associations with executive functioning.

Deconstructing Racial Differences: The Effects of Quality of Education and Cerebrovascular Risk Factors

OBJECTIVES To evaluate the effects of vascular conditions and education quality on cognition over time in White and African American (AA) older adults. METHOD We investigated cross-sectional and longitudinal racial differences in executive functioning (EF) and memory composites among Whites (n = 461) and AAs (n = 118) enrolled in a cohort study. We examined whether cerebrovascular risk factors and Shipley Vocabulary scores (a proxy for education quality) accounted for racial differences. RESULTS On average, AAs had lower quality of education and more cerebrovascular risk factors including hypertension, diabetes, and obesity. AAs had lower mean EF and memory at baseline, but there were no group differences in rates of decline. Cross-sectional racial differences in EF and memory persisted after controlling for vascular disease, but disappeared when controlling for Shipley Vocabulary. DISCUSSION Quality of education appears to be more important than cerebrovascular risk factors in explaining cross-sectional differences in memory and EF performance between White and AA older adults. Further investigation is needed regarding the relative contribution of education quality and cerebrovascular risk factors to cognitive decline among ethnically/racially diverse older adults.

Self-reported depressive syndromes in mild cognitive impairment and mild Alzheimer's disease

BACKGROUND There is suggestion that self-reported depressive syndromes can independently manifest in the general population as cognitive/affective or somatic/vegetative. The Beck Depression Inventory, 2nd edition (BDI-II), a self-report measure of depressive symptoms, has been shown to support this two-factor structure. However, this finding has not been examined in an older adult sample with cognitive impairment. In order to determine whether older adults with cognitive impairments exhibit similarly independent cognitive/affective and somatic/vegetative depressive syndromes, we explored the factor structure of the BDI-II in this population. METHODS Participants were 228 older adults (mean age = 74, SD = 7.9) diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment (MCI; n = 137) or early Alzheimers disease (n = 85), who completed the BDI-II as part of an outpatient neuropsychological evaluation. Exploratory principal component factor analysis with direct Oblimin rotation was conducted, and a two-factor solution was specified based on our theoretical conceptualization of the cognitive/affective and somatic/vegetative items from the scale. RESULTS The first factor represented cognitive/affective symptoms of depression (e.g. self-dislike, pessimism, worthlessness), and accounted for 36% of the variance. Adding the second factor, reflecting somatic/vegetative items (e.g. sleep and appetite changes, loss of energy), accounted for an additional 6.8% of the variance. CONCLUSION Results supported the presence of two distinct depressive syndromes, cognitive/affective and somatic/vegetative symptoms. Thus, cognitively impaired older adults report mood symptoms relatively similarly to younger and midlife adults. This supports the validity of self-reported mood in this group, and the results may have implications for psychiatric treatment in this population.

Associations Between Original and a Reduced Frontal Systems Behavior Scale (FrSBe), Cognition, and Activities of Daily Living in a Large Neurologic Sample

A recent confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on the Frontal Systems Behavior Scale (FrSBe) indicated that the basic structure of the FrSBe subscales held after removal of 8 weak items. In a replication of previous studies using the original FrSBe, the present study explored associations between a reduced version of the FrSBe, cognition, and activities of daily living (ADLs) in a large mixed outpatient neurologic sample. Consistent with previous findings with the original FrSBe, significant associations existed between reduced FrSBe scores and the Mattis Dementia Rating Scale-Second Edition. Additionally, after controlling for age, gender, and education, reduced FrSBe Apathy was associated with basic ADLs, and reduced FrSBe Disinhibition was associated with instrumental ADLs. These results offer replication in a larger sample of previous findings and statistical support for a reduced FrSBe beyond CFA results alone.

Evaluative Organization of the Self-Concept in Younger, Midlife, and Older Adults

Showers’s model of evaluative organization is a fruitful way to conceptualize the self-concept and is related to self-esteem, depressive symptoms, and emotion regulation. In this study, the authors developed and piloted a card-sort measure to compare the evaluative organization of the self-concept in healthy older, midlife, and younger adults (approximately two thirds of participants were women). The results support the primary hypothesis that older adults would exhibit greater compartmentalization of the self-concept than younger and middle-aged persons. Older adults may think about their positive and negative self-aspects in a more differentiated fashion (i.e., categorize positive and negative self-aspects into separate roles) than younger and midlife persons, who are more integrative (i.e., categorize positive and negative self-aspects under the same role heading) in their self-concepts. The results are consistent with cognitive priming, memory, and emotion regulation studies, which suggest that the way persons organize information about themselves may be different in younger, midlife, and older adults.