Predicting episodic memory performance of very old men and women: Contributions from age, depression, activity, cognitive ability, and speed.

Abstract

Regression models were developed to explain age-related and total variance in memory and to determine the independent contribution from general processing speed, having taken into account cognitive and noncognitive individual differences. Episodic memory was assessed for 3 tasks in a population-based sample of 951 adults comprising 515 men and 436 women (aged 70-96, M = 77.6, SD = 5.5). Correlations between age and memory accounted for 6%-9% of the variance. Hierarchical multiple regressions showed a reduction in this age-related variance by up to 94%, after entering gender, depression, health, cognitive status, activities, and speed. General processing speed was the major mediator of age-related variance in memory. Although both the age-related variance and the speed-related variance in memory were significantly reduced by prior entry of other individual differences variables for all 3 tasks, speed remained a significant mediator of remembering, and negligible differences in the residual age-related variance were observed by inclusion of other background variables.

Differences in EEG power in young and mature healthy adults during an incidental/spatial learning task are related to age and execution efficiency

“…It has been proposed that incidental learning occurs under any attempt to strategically encode information during an on-going activity. Namely, this encoded information is mainly related to the strategies involved in memory retrieval, thereby leading to successful recall in learning/memory tasks, which require efficient retrieval processes (Luszcz 1998;Luszcz et al 1997). Therefore, it appears that the power values of EEG theta and gamma activities do not provide electrographic correlates of incidental learning processes, as changes in these parameters were not observed during the incidental encoding of visuospatial information in both young and mature adult groups in the present work.…”

Examination of the bidirectional influences of leisure activity and memory in old people: A dissociative effect on episodic memory

“…It has been shown many times that there is a link between level of participation in activities and performance on various cognitive tasks, in both longitudinal studies (Ghisletta et al, 2006;Lövdén et al, 2005;Newson & Kemps, 2005), and cross-sectional studies (e.g., Christensen et al, 1996;Hill, Wahlin, Winblad, & Bäckman, 1995;Luszcz, Bryan, & Kent, 1997). Taken as a whole, these studies show that greater participation in activities is related to higher levels of cognitive performance (use-it-or-lose-it hypothesis).…”

The Nature and Correlates of Self-Esteem Trajectories in Late Life

“…The study consists of an extensive personal interview including, among other things, psychosocial, behavioral, social, and contextual variables. Detailed information on study procedures and constructs can be found in Andrews et al (2002), Anstey et al (2003), and Luszcz and colleagues (Luszcz, Bryan, & Kent, 1997).…”

“…Cognitive correlates were assessed with the Digit Symbol Substitution subscale of the revised Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (Wechsler, 1981; for details, see Luszcz et al, 1997). As a parsimonious measure of psychomotor speed, participants were asked to substitute symbols corresponding to numbers from 1 to 9 as rapidly as possible into a randomly ordered array of 93 digits.…”