The present study was an examination of how exposure to print affects sentence processing and memory in older readers. A sample of older adults (N = 139; Mean age = 72) completed a battery of cognitive and linguistic tests and read a series of sentences for recall. Word-by-word reading times were recorded and generalized linear mixed effects models were used to estimate components representing attentional allocation to word-level and textbase-level processes. Older adults with higher levels of print exposure showed greater efficiency in word-level processing and in the immediate instantiation of new concepts, but allocated more time to semantic integration at clause boundaries. While lower levels of working memory were associated with smaller wrap-up effects, individuals with higher levels of print exposure showed a reduced effect of working memory on sentence wrap-up. Importantly, print exposure was not only positively associated with sentence memory, but was also found to buffer the effects of working memory on sentence recall. These findings suggest that the increased efficiency of component reading processes that come with life-long habits of literacy buffer the effects of working memory decline on comprehension and contribute to maintaining skilled reading among older adults.

We examined age differences in the allocation of effort when reading text for either high levels of recall accuracy or high levels of efficiency. Older and younger adults read a series of sentences, making judgments of learning before recalling the information they had studied. Older adults showed less sensitivity than the young to the accuracy goal in terms of both reading time allocation and memory performance. Memory monitoring (i.e., the correspondence between actual and perceived learning) and differential allocation of effort to unlearned items were age-equivalent, so that age differences in goal adherence were not attributable to these factors. However, comparison with data from a judgment task neutral with respect to memory monitoring showed that learning gains among the old across trial were reduced relative to young by memory monitoring, suggesting that active memory monitoring may be resource-consuming for older learners. Regression analysis was used to show that age differences in the responsiveness to (cognitive/information-acquisition) goals could be accounted for, in part, by independent contributions from working memory and memory selfefficacy. Our data suggest that both processing capacity ("what you have") and beliefs ("knowing you can do it") can contribute to individual differences in engaging resources ("what you do") to effectively learn novel content from text.Age-graded declines in fluid abilities (e.g., working memory capacity, attentional processes, processing speed) can impact the outcomes of reading, most notably memory for the information in the text that was read (Johnson, 2003;Wingfield & Stine-Morrow, 2000). Poor discourse memory among older adults is often attributed to age-graded changes in processing efficiency (e.g., Hartley, Stojack, Mushaney, Annon, & Lee, 1994;Stine & Hindman, 1994), resulting in a degradation in the strength or fidelity of the text representation garnered from time allocated to the task. The effects of this decrease in processing efficiency on recall performance may be exacerbated by a neglect in the allocation of attentional resources to overcome changes in cognitive ability (Ratner, Schell, Crimmins, Mittelman, & Baldinelli, 1987;Stine-Morrow, Miller, & Leno, 2001;Stine-Morrow, Ryan, & Leonard, 2000;Zabrucky & Moore, 1994), essentially a self-regulatory phenomenon in which reading strategies do not fully accommodate to age-graded change in capacity.This study was motivated by the desire to understand why this accommodation may not occur. We considered the viability of three (not mutually exclusive) explanations. First, it could be that older readers' reduced working memory capacity impairs the executive control of selfregulatory processing (e.g., Thiede & Dunlosky, 1999). Second, it could be that fundamental components of metacognitive control (e.g., the ability to monitor the current status of memory and allocate effort appropriately) are compromised with age (e.g., Hertzog & Dunlosky, 2004). Finally, it could be that age-related change in motiv...

Protein kinase D (PKD) 1 influences cell migration by mediating both trans-Golgi vesicle fission and integrin recycling to the cell surface. Using restriction landmark genomic scanning methods, we found that the promoter region of PKD1 was aberrantly methylated in gastric cancer cell lines. Silencing of PKD1 expression was detected in 72.7% of gastric cancer cell lines examined, and the silencing was associated with CpG hypermethylation in the promoter region of PKD1. Treatment with 5-aza-2#-deoxycytidine and trichostatin A partially reversed PKD1 methylation and restored gene expression in PKD1-silenced cell lines. Real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction analysis of 96 paired clinical primary gastric cancer samples revealed that 59% of the analyzed tumors had a >2-fold decrease in PKD1 expression compared with each normal-appearing tissue and that this downregulation of PKD1 expression was significantly correlated with increased methylation. We also observed a gradual increase in the level of promoter methylation of PKD1 in aging, normal-appearing mucosal tissues, suggesting that PKD1 methylation may be one of the earliest events that predispose an individual to gastric cancer. PKD1 expression was required for directional migration of gastric cancer cells. Furthermore, knock down of PKD1 by RNA interference promoted the invasiveness of cell lines that expressed PKD1 at relatively high levels. Based on these results, we propose that PKD1 is frequently silenced by epigenetic regulation, which plays a role in cell migration and metastasis in gastric cancer.

While previous research has linked executive attention to emotion regulation, the current study investigated the role of attentional alerting (i.e., efficient use of external warning cues) on younger (N = 39) and older (N = 44) adults' use of gaze to regulate their mood in real time. Participants viewed highly arousing unpleasant images while reporting their mood and were instructed to deliberately manage how they felt and to minimize the effect of those stimuli on their mood. Fixations toward the most negative areas of the images were recorded with eye tracking. We examined whether looking less at the most negative regions, compared to each individual's own tendency, was a beneficial mood regulatory strategy and how it interacted with age and alerting ability. High alerting older adults, who rely more on external cues to guide their attention, experienced a smaller decline in mood over time by activating a less-negative-looking approach (compared to their own average tendency), effectively looking away from the most negative areas of the images. More negative gaze patterns predicted better mood for younger adults, though this effect decreased over time. Alerting did not moderate gaze-mood links in younger adults. Successful mood regulation may thus depend on particular combinations of age, fixation, and attention. Keywordsaging; gaze; mood; attentional functioning Contrary to the negative stereotypes related to aging, theoretical and empirical literatures suggest that emotion regulation skills are maintained or may even be enhanced throughout adulthood. Older adults report experiencing fewer negative emotions and more positive emotions than their younger counterparts (e.g., Gross et al., 1997;Lawton, et al., 2001). They consider themselves to have effective regulatory strategies with which to control emotional experience and expression (Gross et al., 1997;Lawton, Kleban, Rajagopal, & Dean, 1992;Phillips, Henry, Hosie, & Milne, 2008;Shiota & Levenson, 2009). Socioemotional selectivity theory (SST; Carstensen, Isaacowitz, & Charles, 1999) provides one explanation for why older adults appear to be better emotion regulators. According to SST, emotional goals become more salient as people age and they perceive their time to be more limited. As a result, older adults are motivated to pursue emotional satisfaction and Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Soo Rim Noh or Derek Isaacowitz, Department of Psychology, Brandeis University, MS062, Waltham, MA02454-9001. srn@brandeis.edu or dmi@brandeis.edu. 3 A separate model was also run to test whether between-person fixation differences predicted mood change over time. Although the mean level fixation did not predict a time-related trend in mood, there was evidence that, on average, older adults with high alerting ability who had the average tendency to fixate on less negative aspects of the stimuli, were able to maintain a higher level of overall mood than those who used a negative looking approach (i.e., BPfixation X Age Group X Alerting ...

While age-related declines in facial expression recognition are well documented, previous research relied mostly on isolated faces devoid of context. We investigated the effects of context on age differences in recognition of facial emotions and in visual scanning patterns of emotional faces. While their eye movements were monitored, younger and older participants viewed facial expressions (i.e., anger, disgust) in contexts that were emotionally congruent, incongruent, or neutral to the facial expression to be identified. Both age groups had highest recognition rates of facial expressions in the congruent context, followed by the neutral context, and recognition rates in the incongruent context were worst. These context effects were more pronounced for older adults. Compared to younger adults, older adults exhibited a greater benefit from congruent contextual information, regardless of facial expression. Context also influenced the pattern of visual scanning characteristics of emotional faces in a similar manner across age groups. In addition, older adults initially attended more to context overall. Our data highlight the importance of considering the role of context in understanding emotion recognition in adulthood.