Aging Is Associated With Multidirectional Changes in Social Cognition: Findings From an Adult Life-Span Sample Ranging From 18 to 101 Years

Grainger, Sarah A.; Crawford, John D.; Riches, Julia; Kochan, Nicole A.; Chander, Russell J.; Mather, Karen A.; Sachdev, Perminder S.

doi:10.1093/geronb/gbac110

Cited by 13 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 53 publications

(77 reference statements)

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“…Then, Pearson correlation coefficients were computed to assess the relationship of age, anxiety, and depressive symptoms with EF, ToM, and selfreport measures. Age, anxiety, and depressive symptoms have been shown to impact EF and ToM functioning in healthy adults (Grainger et al, 2023;Roye et al, 2022). For this reason, all subsequent group comparisons in this study were run with and without these variables We then assessed the proportions of FH+ participants exhibiting either EF difficulties (i.e., at least one EF measure below the standard cutoff), ToM difficulties (i.e., at least one ToM measure below the standard cutoff), or both (i.e., at least one EF and one ToM measure below the standard cutoff).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Then, Pearson correlation coefficients were computed to assess the relationship of age, anxiety, and depressive symptoms with EF, ToM, and self‐report measures. Age, anxiety, and depressive symptoms have been shown to impact EF and ToM functioning in healthy adults (Grainger et al., 2023; Roye et al., 2022). For this reason, all subsequent group comparisons in this study were run with and without these variables as covariates.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Patterns of executive functions and theory of mind in adults with a family history of alcohol use disorder: Combined group and single‐case analyses

Schmid,

Henry,

Benzerouk

et al. 2024

Alcohol, Clinical and Experimental Research

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BackgroundImpairments in executive function and social cognition are highly prevalent in individuals with an alcohol use disorder (AUD). Some studies show that similar difficulties are displayed by individuals with a positive family history of AUD (FH+) compared with individuals with a negative family history (FH‐). Yet, no studies have jointly investigated cognitive and affective theory of mind at the behavioral level. Moreover, some studies show preserved executive and socioemotional functioning in FH+ participants. One possible explanation for these divergent results is that FH+ individuals are cognitively heterogeneous. In this study, we examined the frequency and co‐occurrence of difficulties in executive function and social cognition among FH+ individuals at the individual level.MethodsSixty FH+ and 60 FH− participants matched on age, sex, and education level were included. They completed tasks assessing executive functions (Stroop, Trail Making Test) and affective and cognitive theory of mind (Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition). They also completed self‐report questionnaires measuring impulsivity, alexithymia, and empathy. Single‐case analyses assessed the proportion of FH+ participants with difficulties in executive function and/or theory of mind.ResultsFH+ individuals exhibited difficulties in response inhibition and made more errors during theory of mind processing, indicating an absence of mental state representation, compared with FH− individuals. In the FH+ sample, 53.33% had executive function and/or theory of mind difficulties. Those with lower theory of mind scores reported higher alexithymia and lower empathy on self‐report measures.ConclusionsFH+ individuals display heterogeneous executive function and theory of mind abilities. Given that they mostly occur independently of one another, executive function and theory of mind difficulties may be distinct vulnerability markers in AUD.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Patterns of executive functions and theory of mind in adults with a family history of alcohol use disorder: Combined group and single‐case analyses

Schmid,

Henry,

Benzerouk

et al. 2024

Alcohol, Clinical and Experimental Research

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“…This is because one key limitation of the emotion perception and ageing literature is a reliance on extreme age group comparisons (i.e., comparisons of younger and older adults, see Freund & Isaacowitz, 2013). There is a handful of studies that have examined emotion perception abilities using lifespan samples, and the findings are mixed, with some studies showing that the capacity to detect at least some emotions declines from young adulthood and others showing that this capacity is preserved until older adulthood (Calder et al, 2003; Grainger et al, in press; Horning et al, 2012; Mill et al, 2009; Richoz et al, 2018; West et al, 2012). However, all of these studies have included emotions presented in isolation without rich background contextual information; therefore, it is unclear how middle-aged adults perform when provided with emotions embedded in contextually rich scenes.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Absence of age differences in emotion perception and gaze patterns using a contextually rich film-based assessment

Grainger

2022

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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Age differences in emotion perception are now well documented. However, a key limitation of many studies in this literature is the reliance on highly artificial tasks that lack context and consequently have poor ecological validity. This study reports two separate experiments that investigated age differences in emotion perception abilities using a highly contextualised film-based assessment along with a traditional emotion perception task. Experiment 2 additionally included a middle-aged sample and an assessment of eye-gaze patterns to the emotional films. The inclusion of eye-tracking in Experiment 2 was motivated by the fact that older adults consistently show visual biases to static emotion stimuli, yet it remains unclear whether biases also emerge in response to dynamic contextualised emotion stimuli. Experiment 1 identified age effects recognising displays of anger in the traditional emotion perception task but no age differences emerged on the film-based task. This finding was replicated in Experiment 2 with significant group differences on the traditional emotion perception task but no age differences on the film-based task. Experiment 2 also showed that there were no age differences in gaze patterns to these stimuli, showing for the first time that age-related visual biases to emotion stimuli may be task dependent. These findings highlight the fact that task-related features play a key role in the evaluation of age effects in emotion perception.

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“…(While poor social behavior in the context of Bunt’s model simply refers to a lack of engagement in activities that are social in nature, in the context of social cognition, poor social behavior instead refers to social behavioral abnormalities, such as poor social tact, a lack of manners, interpersonal boundary infringements, reduced use of communicative gestures and unsolicited affiliative contact with strangers.) Although most evidence points to stasis or even age-related gains in affective empathy ( Beadle et al, 2015 ; Grainger et al, 2022 ), for each of the three other social cognitive domains age-related decline has been the most consistent finding. Age-related losses have been identified in key aspects of social perception such as gaze-cued attention ( McKay et al, 2022 ) and facial affect recognition ( Hayes et al, 2020 ), as well as in ToM understanding ( Henry et al, 2013 ).…”

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confidence: 97%

Social Frailty in Late Adulthood: Social Cognitive and Psychological Well-Being Correlates

Coundouris

Mead

Thompson

et al. 2022

The Journals of Gerontology: Series B

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Objectives Social frailty poses a major threat to successful ageing, but its social cognitive and psychological wellbeing correlates remain poorly understood. This cross-sectional study provides initial insights into whether social cognitive difficulties in older age are associated with social frailty, as well as how social frailty is linked to psychological characteristics known to be important for health and wellbeing. Method Ninety community-dwelling older adults completed measures of social frailty and social cognition (social perception, theory of mind, affective empathy, and informant-rated social behavior) as well as measures of psychological function known to be important for health and wellbeing, both positively (resilience and life satisfaction) and negatively (demoralization, social anxiety, and apathy). Measures of cognitive frailty, physical frailty and depression were also administered to test the specificity of any observed relationships with social frailty. Results Both affective empathy and social behavior were predictive of increased social frailty, but social behavior emerged as the only unique predictor after controlling for covariates. Social frailty also predicted unique variance in all five measures of psychological wellbeing, and for three of these measures (demoralization, resilience, and life satisfaction), the effects remained significant even after adjusting for covariates. Discussion Findings are discussed in relation to models of socioemotional aging and frailty. Potential mechanisms linking social behavior to social capital in older age are identified, as well as how loss of social resources might both directly and indirectly impact wellbeing.

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Aging Is Associated With Multidirectional Changes in Social Cognition: Findings From an Adult Life-Span Sample Ranging From 18 to 101 Years

Cited by 13 publications

References 53 publications

Patterns of executive functions and theory of mind in adults with a family history of alcohol use disorder: Combined group and single‐case analyses

Patterns of executive functions and theory of mind in adults with a family history of alcohol use disorder: Combined group and single‐case analyses

Absence of age differences in emotion perception and gaze patterns using a contextually rich film-based assessment

Social Frailty in Late Adulthood: Social Cognitive and Psychological Well-Being Correlates

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