The Relationship between Cognitive Reserve and Math Abilities

Arcara, Giorgio; Mondini, Sara; Bisso, Alice; Palmer, Katie; Meneghello, Francesca; Semenza, Carlo

doi:10.3389/fnagi.2017.00429

Cited by 35 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…It is likely that individuals were not relying so much on the use of working memory while facing creative tasks. This result is coherent to some extent with the results from Arcara et al ( 2017 ), who reported that a general CR index did not predict abstract math ability. Even if the Digit Span test is not a math test per se , it requires the activation of neural networks related to mathematical thinking, together with working memory (Raghubar et al, 2010 ).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

“…For this reason, studies reporting a role of the DLPFC in moderating CR are particularly relevant to our investigation. Roldán-Tapia et al ( 2012 ) and Arcara et al ( 2017 ) focused on the relationships between the CR and several cognitive and executive functions. Results highlighted that CR levels (mainly education in Arcara and colleagues' study) contribute significantly to the performance in tasks that refer back to functions mainly related to the dorsolateral prefrontal area.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Relationships Between Cognitive Reserve and Creativity. A Study on American Aging Population

2018

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The Cognitive Reserve (CR) hypothesis suggests that the brain actively attempts to cope with neural damages by using pre-existing cognitive processing approaches or by enlisting compensatory approaches. This would allow an individual with high CR to better cope with aging than an individual with lower CR. Many of the proxies used to assess CR indirectly refer to the flexibility of thought. The present paper aims at directly exploring the relationships between CR and creativity, a skill that includes flexible thinking. We tested a sample of 72 adults (aged between 45 and 78) assessing both their level of CR and their creativity. To evaluate CR we used the proxies commonly used in literature, namely, three subtests from the WAIS (vocabulary, similarities, and digit span) and the years of education. We also used an ad-hoc test asking people to report how frequently they tend to perform activities that are believed to increase CR. We used verbal creativity tasks (alternative uses and generation of acronyms) to assess individual levels of creativity. We asked participants to describe their main occupation (present or past) and coded each occupation as creative or not creative. Results (controlling for age-related differences) showed that scores from the WAIS correlated positively with creativity performance, even though correlations varied across the subtests. Focusing on the frequency and type of activities that people perform, and comparing individuals who have or had a creative job to those with a routine job, a clear relationship between creativity and CR emerged. This effect was more relevant than the level of job complexity. Implications for the study of CR and aging are discussed.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Relationships Between Cognitive Reserve and Creativity. A Study on American Aging Population

2018

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“… Cabral et al (2016) found a relation between CR and EFs; however, CR was operationalized only with measures of education (years of education, school failure, school attendance), or strictly related to it (reading books, newspapers and number of languages spoken). When using a more complex CR questionnaire, correlations with EFs or related functions sometimes fail to emerge ( Puccioni and Vallesi, 2012b ; Léon et al, 2014 ; Arcara et al, 2017 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

General Slowing and Education Mediate Task Switching Performance Across the Life-Span

2018

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Objective: This study considered the potential role of both protective factors (cognitive reserve, CR) and adverse ones (general slowing) in modulating cognitive flexibility in the adult life-span.Method: Ninety-eight individuals performed a task-switching (TS) paradigm in which we adopted a manipulation concerning the timing between the cue and the target. Working memory demands were minimized by using transparent cues. Additionally, indices of cognitive integrity, depression, processing speed and different CR dimensions were collected and used in linear models accounting for TS performance under the different time constraints.Results: The main results showed similar mixing costs and higher switching costs in older adults, with an overall age-dependent effect of general slowing on these costs. The link between processing speed and TS performance was attenuated when participants had more time to prepare. Among the different CR indices, formal education only was associated with reduced switch costs under time pressure.Discussion: Even though CR is often operationalized as a unitary construct, the present research confirms the benefits of using tools designed to distinguish between different CR dimensions. Furthermore, our results provide empirical support to the assumption that processing speed influence on executive performance depends on time constraints. Finally, it is suggested that whether age differences appear in terms of switch or mixing costs depends on working memory demands (which were low in our tasks with transparent cues).

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“…Another research question is to evaluate whether different cognitive processes are diversely sensitive to CR. In fact, it seems that the beneficial effects of high CR do not necessarily help performance in all cognitive tasks; for example, math performance has been shown to be independent from the level of CR in older adults from 65 years old (Arcara et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive Reserve and Its Effect in Older Adults on Retrieval of Proper Names, Logo Names and Common Nouns

et al. 2019

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Previous studies showed that high Cognitive Reserve (CR, years of education and experience and knowledge acquired in life) is correlated with language proficiency as measured with vocabulary size, verbal analogy, and semantic processing. The aim of the present study is to investigate the relationship between CR and the ability in retrieving different categories of words: Proper Names, Logo Names, and Common Nouns. The hypothesis is that CR contributes more in retrieving Common Nouns and Logo Names which are highly semantically interconnected, than retrieving Proper Names which are pure referring expressions. Forty-six Italian healthy older adults underwent the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) and their performances spanned from low to high global cognitive profile. They were also administered a picture naming task for Proper Names, Logo Names and Common Nouns. Latency and Accuracy were recorded. CR was measured with the Cognitive Reserve Index (CRI) questionnaire which provides a measure of education, working time activities, and leisure time activities. Participants were significantly faster and more accurate in name retrieval when CR was high. CRI and MoCA as interaction terms predicted naming Latency with a stronger effect of CRI when the global cognitive profile was in the low range. The effect of CRI on Accuracy was lower for Proper Names than for Common Nouns and Logo Names, which did not differ from each other. Our results show that name retrieval Accuracy can be predicted by CR, significantly more in the case of Logo Names and Common Nouns than in the case of Proper Names. As Proper Names have scarce semantic interconnections and are arbitrarily assigned to unique individuals, they are not much influenced by CR. Although Logo Names are also arbitrarily assigned to their bearers, they can be conceptually categorized and thus influenced by reserve. The weak relationship between Proper Names and CR might suggest a proper name task as a useful tool to detect early signs of dementia, in particular for persons with high CR.

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The Relationship between Cognitive Reserve and Math Abilities

Cited by 35 publications

References 46 publications

The Relationships Between Cognitive Reserve and Creativity. A Study on American Aging Population

The Relationships Between Cognitive Reserve and Creativity. A Study on American Aging Population

General Slowing and Education Mediate Task Switching Performance Across the Life-Span

Cognitive Reserve and Its Effect in Older Adults on Retrieval of Proper Names, Logo Names and Common Nouns

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