Chapter Five Cognition and Aging: A Theory of New Learning and the Use of Old Connections

MacKay, Donald G.; Burke, Deborah M.

doi:10.1016/s0166-4115(08)60159-4

Cited by 230 publications

(309 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…It is therefore suggested that age-related associative deficits with words are observed because the item test is for concepts supported by pre-existing knowledge while the associative test is for completely new concepts: Age differences on the item test for words are reduced compared to associative memory age differences because older participants can use pre-existing knowledge of the words to support memory formation. This view is shared by MacKay and Burke (1990), who proposed a commitment learning principle whereby age differences in memory formation are smaller when fewer new connections are required. In their chapter, they discussed a variety of evidence showing that older adults produce smaller age differences in word memory tasks when they can use pre-existing knowledge (referred to as engrainment learning) to support the encoding of information.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Age-related associative deficits are absent with nonwords.

Badham¹,

Maylor²

2011

Psychology and Aging

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Words and nonwords were used as stimuli to assess item and associative recognition memory performance in young and older adults. Participants were presented with pairs of items and then tested on both item memory (old/new items) and associative memory (intact/recombined pairs).For words, older participants performed worse than young on item and associative tests but to a greater extent on the latter. In contrast, for nonwords, older participants performed equally worse than young on item and associative tests. This is the first study to demonstrate that a manipulation of stimulus novelty can alter age-related associative deficits.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Age-related associative deficits are absent with nonwords.

Badham¹,

Maylor²

2011

Psychology and Aging

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“…Some evidence of the sufficiency of the simultaneity mechanism can be obtained from computational models incorporating variations in the speed of propagation of activation or in the speed of firing productions (e.g., Salthouse, 1985bSalthouse, , 1988a; see also MacKay & Burke, 1990, for additional discussion of a very similar mechanism). Prediction of the specific consequences of a processing-speed limitation requires a detailed understanding of, or a willingness to make many assumptions about, the processes involved in a particular task.…”

Section: Simultaneity Mechanismmentioning

confidence: 99%

The processing-speed theory of adult age differences in cognition.

Salthouse¹

1996

Psychological Review

4,645

316

3,677

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A theory is proposed to account for some of the age-related differences reported in measures of Type A or fluid cognition. The central hypothesis in the theory is that increased age in adulthood is associated with a decrease in the speed with which many processing operations can be executed and that this reduction in speed leads to impairments in cognitive functioning because of what are termed the limited time mechanism and the simultaneity mechanism. That is, cognitive performance is degraded when processing is slow because relevant operations cannot be successfully executed (limited time) and because the products of early processing may no longer be available when later processing is complete (simultaneity). Several types of evidence, such as the discovery of considerable shared age-related variance across various measures of speed and large attenuation of the age-related influences on cognitive measures after statistical control of measures of speed, are consistent with this theory.The purpose of the current article is to describe, and discuss the evidence relevant to, the processing-speed theory of cognitive aging phenomena. The fundamental assumption in the theory is that a major factor contributing to age-related differences in memory and other aspects of cognitive functioning is a reduction with increased age in the speed with which many cognitive operations can be executed (Salthouse, 1985b). In this article, discussion of evidence relevant to the theory is restricted to the adult portion of the life span, but the basic mechanism may be relevant across the entire life span because similar ideas have been proposed by Kail (e.g., 1986Kail (e.g., , 1991Kail & Park, 1992) regarding the development of cognitive functioning during childhood.Because the success of a theory cannot be evaluated if the goal one hopes to achieve is never clearly specified, I begin by briefly describing the phenomenon that the present theory is intended to explain. Some of the best-documented findings in the literature on aging and cognition are the age-related differences in Type A (Hebb, 1942) or fluid (Cattell, 1943;Horn, 1982;Horn & Cattell, 1963) cognition, which include a wide variety of measures of memory, reasoning, and spatial abilities. The relations between age and cognition have been well documented since the earliest mental testing of adults (e.g., Foster & Taylor, 1920;Jones & Conrad, 1933), and they are readily apparent in the results from the standardization data in psychometric and neuropsychological test batteries (e.g., see Salthouse, 1991c, chap. 2, for a review). Because the samples for the standardization data in these test batteries are typically large and representative, and because the performance measures are Preparation of this article was supported by National Institute on Aging Grant R37 AG06826.1 would like to thank John Dunlosky, Julie Earles, Dan Fisk, Leah Light, Ulman Lindenberger, and David Madden for helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.Correspondence concerning this article sho...

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“…However, we will reserve general or task-independent binding theory claims for the General Discussion. Here we focus on applying binding theory to immediate list recall (MacKay & Burke, 1990) and the taboo-superiority effect (MacKay et al, 2004).…”

Section: Arousal Theory and The Taboo-superiority Effectmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does emotion help or hinder immediate memory? Arousal versus priority-binding mechanisms.

Hadley¹,

MacKay²

2006

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cogni

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People recall taboo words better than neutral words in many experimental contexts. The present rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) experiments demonstrated this taboo-superiority effect for immediate recall of mixed lists containing taboo and neutral words matched for familiarity, length, and category coherence. Under binding theory (MacKay et al., 2004), taboo superiority reflects an interference effect: Because the emotional reaction system prioritizes binding mechanisms for linking the source of an emotion to its context, taboo words capture the mechanisms for encoding list context in mixed lists, impairing the encoding of adjacent neutral words when RSVP rates are sufficiently rapid. However, for pure or unmixed lists, binding theory predicted no better recall of taboo-only than of neutral-only lists at fast or slow rates. Present results supported this prediction, suggesting that taboo superiority in immediate recall reflects context-specific binding processes, rather than context-free arousal effects, or emotion-linked differences in rehearsal, processing time, output interference, time-based decay, or guessing biases. One is taboo-superiority: better recall of taboo than of neutral words matched for length and familiarity. The other is poorer recall of neutral words at least one word after a taboo word (the word-after effect) and up to two words before a taboo word (the word-before effect; for related "retrograde amnesia" effects involving other distinctive or emotionally salient stimuli, see Loftus &Burns, 1982, andTulving, 1969). The goal of the present study was to further our understanding of immediate memory and emotion by testing alternative explanations of these effects. The two main alternatives were arousal theory (see, e.g., Cahill & van

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Chapter Five Cognition and Aging: A Theory of New Learning and the Use of Old Connections

Cited by 230 publications

References 59 publications

Age-related associative deficits are absent with nonwords.

Age-related associative deficits are absent with nonwords.

The processing-speed theory of adult age differences in cognition.

Does emotion help or hinder immediate memory? Arousal versus priority-binding mechanisms.

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