The Effects of Adult Ageing and Culture on the Tower of London Task

Abstract

Planning ability is important in everyday functioning, and a key measure to assess the preparation and execution of plans is the Tower of London (ToL) task. Previous studies indicate that older adults are often less accurate than the young on the ToL and that there may be cultural differences in performance on the task. However, potential interactions between age and culture have not previously been explored. In the current study we examined the effects of age on ToL performance in an Asian culture (Malaysia) and a Western culture (British) (n = 191). We also explored whether working memory, age, education, and socioeconomic status explained variance in ToL performance across these two cultures. Results indicated that age effects on ToL performance were greater in the Malaysian sample. Subsequent moderated mediation analysis revealed differences between the two cultures (British vs Malaysians), in that the age-related variance in ToL accuracy was accounted for by WM capacity at low and medium education levels only in the Malaysian sample. Demographic variables could not explain additional variance in ToL speed or accuracy. These results may reflect cultural differences in the familiarity and cognitive load of carrying out complex planning tasks.

PsycAssist: A Web-Based Artificial Intelligence System Designed for Adaptive Neuropsychological Assessment and Training

“…Tower tasks have been widely used in research on the planning skills of individuals with typical development [27,32] or clinical conditions, such as neurodevelopmental disorders, focal brain lesions, frontal lobe dementia, Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases, and psychiatric disorders [6,13,14,33,34]. Among tower tests, ToL is likely the most used with individuals of different chronological ages and conditions.…”

The Effects of Adult Aging and Culture on Theory of Mind

“…On each trial a single digit was presented on screen and participants had to respond to each digit with a keypress to indicate whether it matched the digit presented two positions back in the sequence. We reported the stimuli and procedure in another paper (Phillips et al, 2021). Performance was calculated based on percentage of correct responses in the 2-back trials.…”

Online cognitive testing with Asian older adults during the Covid-19 pandemic: A proof-of-feasibility study

“…It remains therefore largely unknown how adaptable existing protocols of online cognitive testing for OAs would be in different cultural and regional settings. Indeed, evidence suggests that the effects of ageing on cognition differs between different cultures and or between countries at different income levels (26,27). To address this gap, the present manuscript describes a study that tested the feasibility of using online cognitive testing on a population of OAs during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in an Asian middle-income country, Malaysia.…”