Comparing Age Effects in Normally and Extremely Highly Educated and Intellectually Engaged 65 - 80 Year-olds: Potential Protection from Deficit Through Educational and Intellectual Activities Across the Lifespan

Abstract

Education and cognitive activity have been suggested to protect against cognitive decline in old age. However, little is known about the long-term effects of extremely high levels of education and intellectual activity across the lifespan. The present study investigated the extent to which these two variables may moderate the age-related differences in cognitive performance in old adults. Therefore, story recall, paired-associates learning, reading span and letter digit performance of 62 university professors (mean age = 72.47) were compared with those of a representative sample of 196 participants of the Zurich Longitudinal Study of Cognitive Aging (mean age = 73.04). The results demonstrate that the highly educated sample performed significantly better than the normally educated sample in the paired-associates learning and reading span test. Furthermore, age effects were found in the letter digit as well as in the paired-associates learning test. While the normally educated sample demonstrated an age-related decrease in the paired-associates learning test, the performance of the highly educated sample actually increased with increasing age. These findings suggest that extremely high levels of education and intellectual activity may postpone age-related deficits in pairedassociates learning tasks, but not in speed of processing tasks. AbstractEducation and cognitive activity have been suggested to protect against cognitive decline in old age. However, little is known about the long-term effects of extremely high levels of education and intellectual activity across the lifespan. The present study investigated the extent to which these two variables may moderate the age-related differences in cognitive performance in old adults. Therefore, story recall, paired-associates learning, reading span and letter digit performance of 62 university professors (mean age = 72.47) were compared with those of a representative sample of 196 participants of the Zurich Longitudinal Study of Cognitive Aging (mean age = 73.04). The results demonstrate that the highly educated sample performed significantly better than the normally educated sample in the paired-associates learning and reading span test. Furthermore, age effects were found in the letter digit as well as in the paired-associates learning test. While the normally educated sample demonstrated an age-related decrease in the paired-associates learning test, the performance of the highly educated sample actually increased with increasing age. These findings suggest that extremely high levels of education and intellectual activity may postpone age-related deficits in pairedassociates learning tasks, but not in speed of processing tasks.

Do Professors Better Maintain Cognitive Functioning in Older Age?

“…Nevertheless, no age differences were detected on intelligence. Similar findings were reported by Schumacher and Martin (2009), comparing a sample of individuals with average education to retired professors. The cross-sectional comparison revealed that the retired professors performed better in tasks associated with working memory and episodic memory.…”

“…We used archival data from two studies to compare the cognitive performance of highly educated older adults and those with average education. Data from the highly educated sample stemmed from the Zurich Longitudinal Study on Cognitive Health (Schumacher & Martin, 2009), which was specifically designed to examine the cognitive development of retired professors. Data acquisition took place in 2006 and 2011.…”

Normatization of the Symbol Digit Modalities Test-Oral Version in a Latin American Country

“…There are other factors that may influence the relationship between age and cognition: age-related changes in personality, such as anxiety and apathy (Beaudreau & O'Hara, 2009;Brodaty, Altendorf, Withall, & Sachdev, 2010), and presence of morbidity associated with cognitive deterioration, such as hypertension (Scuteri et al, 2011). On the other hand, the cognitive reserve (high education and participation in intellectual activities) acts as a protector against deterioration (Schumacher & Martin, 2009). However, with respect to the last hypothesis, it must be mentioned that in this case, level of education did not interact with the effect of age.…”