Cognitive Inconsistency and Practice-Related Learning in Older Adults

Abstract

The current study examined predictors of individual differences in the magnitude of practice-related improvements achieved by 87 older adults (meanage 63.52 years) over 18-weeks of cognitive practice. Cognitive inconsistency in both baseline trial-to-trial reaction times and week-to-week accuracy scores was included as predictors of practice-related gains in two measures of processing speed. Conditional growth models revealed that both reaction time and accuracy level and rate-of-change in functioning were related to inconsistency, even after controlling for mean-level, but that increased inconsistency was negatively associated with accuracy versus positively associated with reaction time improvement. Cognitive inconsistency may signal dysregulation in the ability to control cognitive performance or may be indicative of adaptive attempts at functioning.

Cognitive functioning throughout the treatment history of clinical late‐life depression

“…Consistent with previous research (Dzierzewski et al, 2013; Hultsch et al, 2002), we observed large fluctuations in global cognitive functioning (i.e., 22% of the total variance in cognitive functioning) in a group of older adults under long-term treatment for depression. We also replicated previous findings of increased age and lower educational attainment being related to lower global cognitive functioning (Plassman et al, 1995).…”

“…Such clinical data have fueled empirical investigations into the relationships between late-life depressive symptoms and cognitive functioning; however, these investigations have not produced consistent results (e.g., Dotson et al, 2008; Han et al, 2006). Potential explanations for the disparate results include investigation of these relationships in non-clinical samples of older adults and the fluctuating course of both late-life cognitive functioning (Dzierzewski et al, 2013; Hultsch et al, 2002) and late-life depression (Beekman et al, 2002; Dautovich et al, 2014). The present investigation sought to investigate the relationships between depressive symptoms and cognitive functioning across the treatment history of late-life major depressive disorder (MDD).…”

“…Dautovich, Dzierzewski, and Gum (2014) reported that among older adults with clinically relevant levels of depression, depressive symptoms fluctuated greatly from observation to observation (Dautovich et al, 2014). Likewise, the cognitive functioning (as operationalized by cognitive test performance) of nondepressed, community-dwelling older adults also fluctuates greatly from occasion to occasion (Dzierzewski et al, 2013; Hultsch et al, 2002), with the amount of fluctuation often being reported as an important predictor of cognitive plasticity, dementia status, and even death (Dzierzewski et al, 2013; Hultsch et al, 2000; MacDonald et al, 2008). Previous research into the fluctuating nature of both depressive symptoms and cognitive functioning suggests that concomitant fluctuations in depressive symptoms may contribute to the variability of cognitive performance over time.…”