Do Professors Better Maintain Cognitive Functioning in Older 					Age?

Aschwanden, Damaris; Schumacher, Vera; Zimmermann, Kathrin; Werner, C. Sue; Allemand, Mathias; Zimprich, Daniel; Martin, Mike

doi:10.1024/1662-9647/a000201

Cited by 6 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…Furthermore, cognitive reserve moderated the effects of biological age on VEM and EF, however, the moderating effect was higher for EF at baseline ( Giogkaraki et al, 2013 ). Similar to our findings, Aschwanden et al (2019) in their longitudinal analysis demonstrated that the highly educated sample showed better performance on memory in five-years, but the cognitive performance was rather stable over time despite of education. The present findings advance our current understanding on the beneficial effects of education in maintaining higher levels of EF performance across time.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

The Neurocognitive Study for the Aging: Longitudinal Analysis on the Contribution of Sex, Age, Education and APOE ɛ4 on Cognitive Performance

et al. 2021

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Objective: The effects of normal cognitive aging on executive functions (EF), Verbal Episodic Memory (VEM) and the contribution of age, sex, education, and APOΕ ε4 in a group of old Greek Cypriots across a five-year period were investigated.Design: NEUROAGE, the first project on cognitive aging in Cyprus, is a prospective longitudinal study with a rolling admission process. Participants are assessed at baseline and retested every 24–30 months.Subjects: 170 participants completed all three testing cycles; 86 men and 84 women with ages ranging between 60 and 88 years (mean = 73.21, SD = 5.84); education, 2–20 years (mean = 9.07, SD = 4.27).Results: Α Repeated Measures Multivariate Analysis of Covariance was conducted with one between-subject factor: sex; two covariates: age and education, while Time (time 1, time 2, time 3) served as a within – subject factor. Time did not have an effect on mini mental status examination in Greek (MMSE), EF or VEM. Also, sex had no effect on MMSE, EF and VEM. There was no time by sex interaction. Age and Education significantly predicted the EF performance, F(1, 168) = 11.23, p < 0.05; F(1, 158) = 90.03, p < 0.001 and VEM performance, F(1, 171) = 17.22, p < 0.001; F(1, 171) = 61.25, p < 0.001. Furthermore, there was a significant interaction effect between time and education, for EF, F(2, 167) = 7.02, p < 0.001. Performance of the APOE ε4 carriers did not differ on any of the above measures as compared to performance of non-carriers in this older adult group.Conclusion: Cognitively healthy adults maintained overall cognitive performance across the five-year period. Male and female participants performed similarly and the pattern of change over time was similar across the two sexes. Education was predictive of VEM and EF performance across time. Furthermore, those with higher education maintained higher levels of EF performance. APOE results did not differentiate performance at baseline. Implications of findings are discussed.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

The Neurocognitive Study for the Aging: Longitudinal Analysis on the Contribution of Sex, Age, Education and APOE ɛ4 on Cognitive Performance

et al. 2021

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“…the "use it or lose it" view on skill acquisition [74,75]. For such skills, age is a metric of loss, which is proportional to a temporal distance from when formal education was completed.…”

Section: Plos Onementioning

confidence: 99%

“…On the other hand, there may be aspects of the literacy skill that are (mostly) developed during formal education and then remain unused at or outside the workplace and home. It has been argued that these literacy-related skills do not convert into competencies and undergo loss [ 23 , 24 ], in line with the “use it or lose it” view on skill acquisition [ 74 , 75 ]. For such skills, age is a metric of loss, which is proportional to a temporal distance from when formal education was completed.…”

Section: Analysis 2: Cross-country Differences and Agementioning

confidence: 99%

Predictors of literacy in adulthood: Evidence from 33 countries

Kyröläinen

Kuperman

2021

PLoS ONE

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What makes a literate person? What leads to literacy gains and losses within and between individuals and countries? This paper provides new evidence that helps answer these questions. The present comparative analysis of literacy is based on large representative samples from the Survey of Adult Skills conducted in 33 countries, with 25–65 year old participants. We provide, for the first time, estimates of relative importance for a comprehensive set of experiential factors, motivations, incentives, parental influence, demands of workplace, and other predictors of influence. We sketch a configuration of factors that predicts an “ideal” reader, i.e., the optimal literacy performance. Moreover, we discover a pivotal role of the age effect in predicting variability between countries. Countries with the highest literacy scores are the ones where literacy decreases with age the most strongly. We discuss this finding against current accounts of aging effects, cohort effects and others. Finally, we provide methodological recommendations for experimental studies of aging in cognitive tasks like reading.

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“…A second account that we consider can be labeled a “use it or lose it” account (see Aschwanden et al, 2019; Hampshire, Sandrone, & Hellyer, 2019; Shimamura, Berry, Mangels, Rusting, & Jurica, 1995). The prime example of this account is the very well-documented frequency effect (see Brysbaert et al, 2011; Brysbaert, Mandera, & Keuleers, 2018 for overview): Words that occur more frequently in language production are easier (faster) to recognize during language comprehension.…”

Section: Theoretical Accountsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Affect across adulthood: Evidence from English, Dutch, and Spanish.

Kyröläinen¹,

Keuleers²,

Mandera³

et al. 2021

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

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Emotions play a fundamental role in language learning, use, and processing. Words denoting positivity account for a larger part of the lexicon than words denoting negativity, and they also tend to be used more frequently, a phenomenon known as positivity bias. However, language experience changes over an individual's lifetime, making the examination of the emotion-laden lexicon an important topic not only across the life span but also across languages. Furthermore, existing theories predict a range of different age-related trajectories in processing valenced words. The present study pits all of these predictions against written productions (Facebook status updates from over 20,000 users) and behavioral data from three publicly available megastudies on different languages, namely English, Dutch, and Spanish, across adulthood. The production data demonstrated an increase in positive word types and tokens with advancing age. In terms of comprehension, the results showed a uniform and consistent effect of valence across languages and cohorts based on data from a visual word recognition task. The difference in reaction times to very positive and very negative words declined with age, with responses to positive words slowing down more strongly with age than responses to negative words. We argue that the results stem from lifelong learning and emotion regulation: Advancing age is accompanied by an increased type frequency of positive words in language production, which is mirrored as a discrimination penalty in comprehension. To our knowledge, this is the first study to simultaneously target both language production and comprehension across adulthood and in a cross-linguistic perspective.

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Do Professors Better Maintain Cognitive Functioning in Older Age?

Cited by 6 publications

References 61 publications

The Neurocognitive Study for the Aging: Longitudinal Analysis on the Contribution of Sex, Age, Education and APOE ɛ4 on Cognitive Performance

The Neurocognitive Study for the Aging: Longitudinal Analysis on the Contribution of Sex, Age, Education and APOE ɛ4 on Cognitive Performance

Predictors of literacy in adulthood: Evidence from 33 countries

Affect across adulthood: Evidence from English, Dutch, and Spanish.

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