Cognitive and motivational selectivity in healthy aging

Abstract

Normal aging is associated with a reduction in the selectivity of cognitive processes such as attention and memory. This loss of selectivity is attributed to diminished inhibition and cognitive control mechanisms in older adults, which render them more susceptible to distraction and more likely to attend to and encode irrelevant information. However, motivational selectivity appears largely preserved in aging.For example, older adults selectively avoid high-demand tasks, exhibit a positivity bias in attention and memory, and show better memory for high-value compared to low-value information. The aim of this review is to integrate these seemingly paradoxical findings of reduced and preserved selectivity in aging, discuss potential neural mechanisms, and propose questions for future research.

The interaction of curiosity and reward on long-term memory in younger and older adults

“…When presented alongside target information, task-irrelevant information is better suppressed when extrinsic motivational incentives are available (e.g., monetary gain, Williams et al, 2017;high point value, Hennessee et al, 2018). This reward-related selectivity effect has been demonstrated in both younger and older adults (for a review, see Swirsky & Spaniol, 2019).…”

“…Instead of boosting memory for irrelevant stimuli, reward motivation tends to narrow attention, increasing the selectivity with which target information is remembered (Braver et al, 2014;Chiew & Braver, 2011). This reward-related selectivity effect has been demonstrated in both younger and older adults (for a review, see Swirsky & Spaniol, 2019). For example, both age groups show enhanced selective attention when anticipating monetary gain on a flanker task (Williams et al, 2017), they both bind less incidental details to item memory for high-value items comped to low-value items (Hennessee et al, 2018), and older adults successfully ignore superimposed distractor stimuli at encoding when motivated by virtual points (Swirsky & Spaniol, 2020).…”

Antibodies to Glutamate Facilitate Spatial Memory Formation in the Morris Water Maze in Aging C57BL/6 mice

“…The hippocampus is responsible for the processing and storage of recently acquired information, and the prefrontal cortex provides a long-term storage function for memory. However, the question arises how these brain areas interact in the realization of the integrative brain activity related to learning and memory [9,10]. In this context, the dorsolateral component of the prefrontal cortex is considered to be a focus of visual spatial memory [6].…”

“…Aging is a physiological process which is accompanied by physical and psychological changes, disruption of homeostasis and increased age-related destabilization of vital functions. It is invariably linked with cognitive deficits, in particular, memory impairment [10]. In this regard, the search for new approaches to prevent and correct age-related changes in short-and long-term memory, as well as understanding the underlying mnestic processes, is a focus of research.…”

A PLS-Neural Network Analysis of Motivational Orientations Leading to Facebook Engagement and the Moderating Roles of Flow and Age

“…This preference for positive over negative external stimuli manifests at the behavioral level ( Swirsky and Spaniol, 2019 )−so older Facebookers might tend to avoid negative information and look for, and choose to be exposed to, content and activities that help them to keep a positive mood. Accordingly, they will attempt to optimize engagement’s positive-valence mechanisms by implementing continuance decisions that enhance the possibility of experiencing engagement again.…”