Sheila Black

Recurrence of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Late Life: A Cognitive Aging Perspective

Clinical experience with older adults shows that many will experience PTSD symptoms in older adulthood because of trauma exposure early in life. Some of these patients struggled with PTSD in the distant past and remained symptomfree for decades only to have a recurrence of PTSD in late life. This paper outlines a cognitive aging explanation for the recurrence of PTSD. It is proposed that the age-related decreases in attention make the intrusion of trauma-related memories more likely. The increase in intrusive memories, combined with age-related decreases in working memory, explicit memory, and prospective memory, increases the subjective distress associated with the memories and results in a recurrence of PTSD.

Semantic satiation in healthy young and older adults

In four experiments, semantic satiation was investigated in young and old adults. In the first two experiments, subjects were repeatedly presented a word (e.g.,dog) and then were presented a pair of words (e.g.,dog-cat ordog-chair) for a relatedness decision. The results of both experiments indicated that for the young adults, the relatedness effect (the difference between response latency on related and unrelated trials) decreased as a function of the number of times the satiated word was repeated, whereas for the older adults, there was no evidence of a decrease in the relatedness effect across repetitions of the satiated word. In the third experiment, we investigated whether phonological codes are also susceptible to satiation. This experiment was similar to the first two experiments with the exception that subjects made rhyme decisions (same-claim vs.same-dime) instead of semantic relatedness decisions. The results of this experiment did not yield any evidence of satiation for either the young adults or the older adults. The final experiment eliminated a simple decrease in attentional alertness or fatigue account of the semantic satiation effects found in the first two experiments. In this experiment, the repeated word was always unrelated to the pair of words presented for the relatedness decision. The results of this experiment did not yield any evidence of semantic satiation for either the young or the older adults. The discussion focuses on the mechanisms underlying semantic satiation and the implications of age-related changes in these mechanisms.

Problem-targeted Memory Training for Older Adults

Various programs have been developed to help older adults improve their memory performance. The majority of these programs have included instruction in one or more mnemonic techniques, some of which may be more useful than others in the everyday lives of most elders. The current study compared a shorter, problem-targeted version of a self-taught memory training program to the original, which has been shown in prior research to be effective. The shorter program focused on three of the most common memory complaints of older adults: (a) memory for names of people; (b) misplaced household objects; and (c) memory for dates and appointments; the longer program also included some list-learning mnemonic techniques and additional practice time with all the mnemonics. Both training programs produced some improvement compared to a delayed-training control condition. However, the longer program produced significant improvement on more outcome measures than did the shorter, problem-targeted program. In addition, direct comparisons between the two training conditions indicated the longer program produced significantly more change on measures of name recall. Additional training time or more general mnemonic training are possible explanations for these effectiveness differences.

Grandparents and Grandparenting in a Rural Southern State A Study of Demographic Characteristics, Roles, and Relationships

Current social and demographic changes have drawn attention to the relationship between grandparents and grandchildren. This research examined grandparents and grandparenting in a rural southern state. One hundred fifty-eight grandparents were interviewed by telephone regarding their roles and relationships with their grandchildren and others along with the impact grandparenting had on their other activities. Results indicate that 60% of the sample had frequent contact with their grandchildren. A significant proportion of the grandparents indicated that they provide assistance by giving advice, preparing meals, and baby-sitting. Additionally, grandparents indicated that providing care does not interfere with their other activities. Discussion focuses on the need to understand grandparent-grandchild relationships and the factors that influence them across time, particularly as the grandchildren become adults.

Adaptive defense use and resting blood pressure in a population-based sample.

OBJECTIVES There is an accumulating body of research related to the psychosomatic study of blood pressure. One variable that has received attention is defense use. We examined the relation between defense use and blood pressure in men and women of different ages. METHODS A random sample of 667 participants was selected from a population-based study. Resting blood pressure was obtained, and each participant was rated for defense use by a trained observer using Defense-Q. An Adaptive Defense Profile (ADP) score was calculated for each participant, and this score was related to blood pressure. RESULTS Regression analyses revealed a significant main effect for the ADP score for both diastolic and systolic blood pressure. Those persons with higher ADP scores had lower diastolic and systolic blood pressure. As well, a significant Age x Sex x ADP score interaction was found for diastolic blood pressure. Older women with a less ADP score had higher diastolic blood pressure. CONCLUSIONS These findings suggest the continued investigation of defense use and blood pressure.

Cognitive Interventions for Older Diabetics.

Diabetes is an insidiously dangerous disease, often resulting in many negative effects including heart disease, kidney failure, and blindness. Both the probability of contracting diabetes and the probability of developing complications associated with the disease increase with age. Poor compliance contributes to older adults’ increased risk of developing complications associated with diabetes. Because poor medical compliance among older adults is frequently due to age‐related changes in cognitive processes, this article discusses how memory training and other cognitive interventions may help older diabetics better manage this disease.

Aging, imagery, and the bizarreness effect

ABSTRACT This study examined the bizarre imagery effect in young and older adults, under incidental and intentional conditions. Intentionality was manipulated across experiments, with participants receiving an incidental free recall test in Experiment 1 and an intentional test in Experiment 2. This study also examined the relation between working memory resources and the bizarreness effect. In Experiment 1 young and older adults were presented with common and bizarre sentences; they later received an incidental recall test. There were no age differences in sensitivity to the bizarreness effect in Experiment 1 when ANOVAs were used to analyze the data. However, when the bizarreness effect was examined in terms of effect size, there was evidence that younger adults produced larger bizarreness effect sizes than younger adults. Experiment 2 further explored age differences in sensitivity to the bizarreness effect by presenting young and older adults with bizarre and common sentences under intentional learning conditions. Experiment 2 failed to yield age differences as a function of item type (bizarre vs. common). In addition, Experiment 2 failed to yield significant evidence that the bizarreness effect is modulated by working memory resources. The results of this study are most consistent with the distinctiveness account of the bizarreness effect.

Contributions of African Americans to the Field of Psychology

This article highlights the contributions of African Americans to the field of psychology with a focus on the struggles of early African American psychologists, the rise of Afrocentrism, and recent theoretical models developed by African American psychologists. The conclusion of this work is that psychology is much richer because of the contributions of African American psychologists.

Effects of homograph meaning frequency on semantic satiation.

This study examined the effects of homograph meaning frequency on semantic satiation within an ambiguity resolution paradigm. Participants received 3 homograph conditions: the concordant (QUICK-FAST-SPEEDY), discordant (HUNGER-FAST-SPEEDY) and neutral (CEILING-FAST-SPEEDY). On each trial, a prime (e.g., QUICK) was presented for various numbers of repetitions. Afterward, the prime was removed and participants made relatedness judgments about a homograph and target. On half of the trials, the prime was related to a high-frequency meaning of the homograph, and on the other half of the trials, the prime was related to a low-frequency meaning. The concordant condition yielded evidence of semantic satiation across meaning frequency conditions (QUICK-FAST-SPEEDY), but the discordant condition only yielded evidence of semantic satiation when the prime activated a subordinate meaning of the homograph (HUNGER-FAST-SPEEDY).

The Effects of Age, Priming, and Working Memory on Decision-Making

In the current study, we examined the effects of priming and personality on risky decision-making while playing the Game of Dice Task (GDT). In the GDT, participants decide how risky they wish to be on each trial. In this particular study prior to playing the GDT, participants were randomly assigned to one of three priming conditions: Risk-Aversive, Risk-Seeking, or Control. In the Risk-Seeking condition, a fictional character benefitted from risky behavior while in the Risk-Aversive condition, a fictional character benefitted from exercising caution. Although not explicitly stated in the instructions, participants need to make “safe” rather than risky choices to optimize performance on the GDT. Participants were also given Daneman and Carpenter’s assessment of working memory task. Interestingly, although older adults self-reported being more cautious than younger adults on the Domain Specific Risk Attitude scale (DOSPERT), older adults made riskier decisions than younger adults on the GDT. However, after controlling for working memory, the age differences on the GDT became insignificant, indicating that working memory mediated the relation between age and risky decisions on the GDT.