Matthew L. Hughes

Aging 5 Years in 5 Minutes The Effect of Taking a Memory Test on Older Adults’ Subjective Age

How old one feels—one’s subjective age—has been shown to predict important psychological and health outcomes. The current studies examined the effect of taking a standard memory test on older adults’ subjective age. Study 1 showed that older adults felt older after taking a standard neuropsychological screening test and participating in a free-recall experiment than they felt at baseline. Study 2 showed that the effect was selective to older adults: Younger adults’ subjective age was not affected by participating in the memory experiment. Study 3 showed that the subjective-aging effect was specific to memory, as taking a vocabulary test for a similar amount of time did not affect older adults’ subjective age. Finally, Study 4 showed that simply expecting to take a memory test subjectively aged older adults. The results indicate that being in a memory-testing context affects older adults’ self-perception by making them feel older.

Social Comparisons of Health and Cognitive Functioning Contribute to Changes in Subjective Age

Objective As individuals age, they monitor how well they are aging by comparing themselves with their peers. We examined whether such social comparisons contribute to change in ones subjective age over time and whether they mediate the relationship of health and cognitive functioning with subjective age. Method A total of 3,427 participants from the Midlife in the United States study were assessed on subjective age on two occasions 10 years apart. Measures of cognition and health were taken at the second wave along with social comparison measures for health and memory. Results The results showed that social comparisons of memory and health mediated the relationship between memory performance and level of subjective age as well as the relationship between functional health and subjective age change. Discussion The results suggest that those who have better functioning in aging-relevant domains have a more favorable view of themselves compared with others, which in turn predicted a younger subjective age and smaller increases in subjective age over 10 years. When social comparisons were considered, those who had better health and memory and more favorable comparative assessments did not feel that they had aged as much as those who had lower functioning and assessments.

The bizarreness effect: evidence for the critical influence of retrieval processes

People show better memory for bizarre sentences relative to common sentences, a finding referred to as the bizarrness effect. Interestingly, this effect is typically only obtained using a mixed-list design, in which participants study common and bizarre sentences in the same list. This bizarreness effect in mixed-list designs has been explained as the result of both enhanced encoding processes and efficient retrieval processes. The present experiment was designed to isolate the unique contributions of the retrieval context to the bizarreness effect. Participants studied common sentences in one room under one set of instructions, and bizarre sentences in another room under another set of instructions. At test, participants recalled the common and bizarre sentences either together or separately. The results showed that the bizarreness effect was only obtained when participants recalled the common and bizarre items together; no bizarreness advantage emerged when participants were required to recall the common and bizarre items separately. These results suggest that differential encoding processes are not necessary for explaining the bizarreness effect in memory. Rather, retrieval of the mixed-list context appears to be critical for obtaining the effect.

The effect of cognitive testing and feedback on older adults’ subjective age

ABSTRACT Subjective age, or how old a person feels, is an important measure of self-perception that is associated with consequential cognitive and health outcomes. Recent research suggests that subjective age is affected by certain situations, including cognitive testing contexts. The current study examined whether cognitive testing and positive performance feedback affect subjective age and subsequent cognitive performance. Older adults took a series of neuropsychological and cognitive tests and subjective age was measured at various time points. Participants also either received positive or no feedback on an initial cognitive task, an analogies task. Results showed that participants felt older over the course of the testing session, particularly after taking a working memory test, relative to baseline. Positive feedback did not significantly mitigate this subjective aging effect. Results suggest that subjective age is malleable and that it can be affected by standard cognitive and neuropsychological test conditions.

Using the Alzheimer’s Association Web Site to Improve Knowledge of Alzheimer’s Disease in Health Care Providers

Background: The purpose of the current study was to investigate whether an informative Web site is effective at producing higher scores for an individual’s knowledge of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) relative to those who do not visit a Web site. Methods: A total of 552 participants completed the study on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk; half were randomly assigned to visit alz.org, while a control group did not. Both groups were given the AD Knowledge Scale (ADKS) to assess their knowledge of AD. Results: Participants who visited alz.org scored significantly higher on the ADKS than those in the control group. Participants who were health care workers demonstrated higher scores than others in the experimental condition. Findings indicate that the Alzheimer’s Association Web site is effective at producing higher scores for AD knowledge relative to no Web site at all and that it is especially helpful for health care workers compared to those who are not health care workers.

The Effect of Prior Task Success on Older Adults’ Memory Performance: Examining the Influence of Different Types of Task Success

Background/Study Context: Negative aging stereotypes can lead older adults to perform poorly on memory tests. Yet, memory performance can be improved if older adults have a single successful experience on a cognitive test prior to participating in a memory experiment (Geraci & Miller, 2013, Psychology and Aging, 28, 340–345). The current study examined the effects of different types of prior task experience on subsequent memory performance. Methods: Before participating in a verbal free recall experiment, older adults in Experiment 1 successfully completed either a verbal or a visual cognitive task or no task. In Experiment 2, they successfully completed either a motor task or no task before participating in the free recall experiment. Results: Results from Experiment 1 showed that relative to control (no prior task), participants who had prior success, either on a verbal or a visual task, had better subsequent recall performance. Experiment 2 showed that prior success on a motor task, however, did not lead to a later memory advantage relative to control. Conclusion: These findings demonstrate that older adults’ memory can be improved by a successful prior task experience so long as that experience is in a cognitive domain.

Misconceptions of Alzheimer’s Disease

Misconceptions about Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are important to identify because they can interfere with treatment, caregiving, and understanding of the disease. The present study aimed to identify core misconceptions of AD and describe variations in endorsement of these misconceptions between groups (e.g., health care professionals vs. non–health care professionals); 2989 participants completed 10 items that assess AD misconceptions. There were notable differences in the prevalence of these misconceptions, which varied from 8% (prescription drugs can prevent Alzheimer’s disease) to 68% (reminder notes contribute to decline). Health care professionals were less likely to endorse that AD is a normal part of aging compared to non–health care professionals (13% vs. 16%). Understanding which misconceptions are most common is critical for designing and tailoring educational interventions.