Psychology and Aging最新文献

{"title":"A functional magnetic resonance imaging investigation of the effect of prior experience on event perception and memory in young and older adults.","authors":"Maverick E Smith, Cris K Brazil, Morgan G Brucks, Laura E Martin, Jennica Power, Heather R Bailey","doi":"10.1037/pag0001036","DOIUrl":"10.1037/pag0001036","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Familiar activities may support memory in older adulthood by synchronizing neural processing during event encoding. To test this hypothesis, young and older adults watched videos of everyday activities that were either familiar or unfamiliar to their age group, while undergoing magnetic resonance imaging. After scanning, participants completed tests of their event memory. Older adults remembered less information than young adults in the young adult familiar activities. Contrary to our hypothesis, fMRI analyses showed that these deficits were not explained by age-related differences in vmPFC-hippocampal functional connectivity during encoding. Instead, intersubject correlation analyses revealed that older adults' poorer memory of unfamiliar videos was associated with reduced similarities in the spatiotemporal responses across viewers' at encoding. Specifically, young adults exhibited greater neural synchrony than older adults in occipital and ventral temporal cortices while viewing videos depicting activities more familiar to young adults. In contrast, age-related differences in synchrony were not observed for videos depicting activities more familiar to older adults. These findings indicate that familiarity promotes more similar neural processing across individuals and supports more normative event encoding in older adults when activities align with their prior experience. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48426,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Aging","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149013090","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A systematic review and meta-analysis of acceptance and commitment therapy for older adults.","authors":"Jennifer Krafft, Carter H Davis, M Lindsey Jacobs, Valerie E Luskey, Hannah L Apostolou, Natalie Tadros, Katherine Luci","doi":"10.1037/pag0001014","DOIUrl":"10.1037/pag0001014","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This review aims to synthesize recent studies on the efficacy of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) for older adults, both overall and for depression, anxiety, quality of life, and pain specifically. Studies were included if they evaluated ACT in a trial with an older adult population, reported pretreatment and posttreatment scores, and were written in English. Studies were excluded if they only reported secondary data, had less than three participants, or did not evaluate a full ACT protocol. The Cochrane Risk of Bias Version 2 and Risk of Bias in Non-Randomized Studies of Interventions tools were used to assess risk of bias. Random-effects meta-analysis was used. This synthesis was preregistered (Prospero: CRD42022376246). Twenty-five studies were included in the overall meta-analysis (<i>n</i> = 1,166 participants). Overall, our results showed a large and significant within-group effect in the primary outcomes in trials of older adults (Hedges's <i>g</i> = 0.88, 95% confidence interval, CI [0.54, 1.21]). Significant within-group effects ranging from small to large were also found for depression (<i>g</i> = 0.56, 95% CI [0.38, 0.74]), anxiety (<i>g</i> = 0.93, 95% CI [0.31, 1.55]), quality of life (<i>g</i> = 0.37, 95% CI [0.08, 0.67]), and pain (<i>g</i> = 0.75, 95% CI [0.32, 1.19]). In sum, existing research suggests ACT shows promise in reducing distress and pain and improving quality of life in older adults. Studies spanned a broad range of countries and settings. However, confidence in these results is very low due to the within-group method used, small sample sizes, inconsistency, and potential publication bias. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48426,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Aging","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149013073","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Awareness of age-related changes and happiness in daily life: Moderating effects of perceived control.","authors":"Maria Wirth, Anna Elena Kornadt, Klaus Rothermund","doi":"10.1037/pag0001035","DOIUrl":"10.1037/pag0001035","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Becoming aware of age-related losses and a perceived absence of age-related gains in late adulthood has been linked to poor well-being, such as low happiness. Perceived control, however, could buffer these detrimental effects of perceived age-related changes. To date, little is known about these associations as they unfold in daily life, limiting our understanding of how individuals can maintain happiness in the face of age-related challenges. Using data from a 14-day daily diary study, we investigated the relations between daily age-related losses and gains, daily happiness, and the moderating role of perceived control in 268 middle-aged and older adults (<i>M</i>_age = 64.47, <i>SD</i>_age = 7.76). On the between-person level, age-related losses were related to lower levels of happiness only for individuals who reported low perceived control. On the within-person level, days with more losses or fewer gains were days with lower happiness, and these relations were more pronounced on days with low perceived control. Our results indicate that experiencing more age-related losses or a lack of age-related gains was related to lower happiness, exacerbated by low control perceptions. Thus, perceived control could play an important role in maintaining happiness when facing age-related changes. Our results also attest to the idea that an improvement in self-perceptions of aging and a strengthening of perceived control should be considered when designing interventions aimed at older adults' developmental adaptation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48426,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Aging","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149013137","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Empathy on the edge: A neurocognitive model of empathy in aging and dementia.","authors":"Yasmin Abo Foul, Simone Shamay-Tsoory","doi":"10.1037/pag0001025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/pag0001025","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Empathy, the ability to understand others' perspectives (cognitive empathy) and share their emotions (emotional empathy), is critical for social functioning across the lifespan. Although empathy changes with age and is often disrupted in neurodegenerative disease, prior research has largely examined isolated components or focused narrowly on healthy aging or specific disorders. This systematic review addresses this gap by synthesizing behavioral and neuroimaging evidence on empathy across typical and pathological aging, from healthy older adulthood and mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer's disease and behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia. We reviewed empirical studies published between January 2015 and October 2025 that examined cognitive and/or emotional empathy in healthy older adults or individuals with mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer's disease, or behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia. We propose an integrative model suggesting that cognitive and emotional empathy follow distinct trajectories across aging. Based on the model, cognitive empathy gradually declines, likely reflecting changes in prefrontal regions and large-scale brain networks, with this process beginning in normal aging and continuing through mild cognitive impairment and dementia. In contrast, emotional empathy is relatively preserved in aging and early disease stages, although it becomes more context-dependent with clearer impairment in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia. We conclude that understanding these trajectories has important implications for early diagnosis, caregiving, and designing targeted interventions to support empathic functioning in older adults and individuals with neurodegenerative diseases. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48426,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Aging","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148991831","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Examining the relationship between online self-efficacy and daily Internet use for older adults.","authors":"Amy M Schuster, Kalvry Cooper, Shubham Agrawal, Shelia R Cotten","doi":"10.1037/pag0001029","DOIUrl":"10.1037/pag0001029","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Internet use by community-dwelling older adults can increase their feelings of social connectedness and alleviate feelings of loneliness. Older adults' Internet use is increasing, yet some older adults still lack confidence in their ability to use the Internet. A lack of confidence may negatively affect their Internet use. This study incorporates constructs from technology acceptance models and theories to examine the role of online self-efficacy as a mediating process linking five sources of technical support (i.e., customer support, themselves, family, friends, and online sources), attitudes, and facilitating conditions to older adults' daily Internet use. Understanding these mechanistic relationships is likely to inform older adults' use and adoption of other existing and emerging technologies. Data were collected, during October and November 2017, using a cross-sectional online survey with a representative sample of U.S. Internet users, aged 65 years and older (<i>N</i> = 1,169). Path analysis modeling results show that the effects of fixing a technical problem themselves, finding technology help online, getting technical support from family, attitude toward new technology, facilitating conditions, and hedonic motivation on daily Internet use were mediated by online self-efficacy. Study results provide insights for designing interventions that can enhance older adults' online self-efficacy and increase their daily Internet use. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48426,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Aging","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148991886","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"When reminders fail to eliminate age differences in prospective memory.","authors":"Dylan Ellis, Connor Dupre, Kinlie Gohl, Matthew K Robison, B Hunter Ball","doi":"10.1037/pag0001023","DOIUrl":"10.1037/pag0001023","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Prospective memory (PM) offloading-setting reminders to support future intentions-can help older adults mitigate age-related memory declines. However, prior research suggests they may not always fully benefit from available reminders. This study examined how metacognitive factors influence age differences in PM offloading across three within-subjects conditions: forced internal (reminders set for no PM targets), forced external (reminders set for all PM targets), and choice (target-by-target reminder setting). Metacognitive monitoring was measured through judgments of learning that estimated how accurately participants believed they would remember the targets without reminders. Metacognitive control was indexed by the proportion of targets for which reminders were set in the choice block and by the frequency of reminder checking during retrieval, recorded via eye tracking. Although reminders improved PM, age-related declines in PM performance were not reduced in the forced or choice conditions. Older adults were overconfident in their performance predictions across all conditions (metacognitive monitoring error). They also did not set or check reminders more frequently than younger adults, despite having more to gain from doing so (metacognitive control error). These findings suggest that metacognitive errors may limit older adults' ability to fully capitalize on offloading strategies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48426,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Aging","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13576502/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148971810","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Evidence for memory-guided auditory attention in aging and hearing loss.","authors":"Mica Pec, Claude Alain, Brandon T Paul","doi":"10.1037/pag0001026","DOIUrl":"10.1037/pag0001026","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Previous studies have linked age-related hearing loss (ARHL) to cognitive decline, but the specific cognitive processes affected remain unclear. The sensory deprivation and cognitive load hypotheses suggest that ARHL makes auditory processing more cognitively demanding, straining overall cognitive resources and reducing the effective use of long-term memory. Memory and attention play a role in auditory perception, enabling listeners to organize complex sounds into meaningful objects that facilitate listening and behavior. One function of long-term memory is to guide attention, and auditory memory-guided attention engages hippocampal networks that are known to be vulnerable in age-related cognitive decline and hearing loss. Examining the interaction between auditory attention and memory may clarify the associations between ARHL and cognitive decline. We tested the preregistered hypothesis that older adults with greater ARHL would show weaker ability to use memory-guided auditory attention. Sixty-two adults aged 40-80 years participated in a memory-guided attention task in which they learned to associate background sounds with the spatial location of a probe-tone target. Contrary to predictions, results suggest preserved memory-guided attention in this age group, and this ability did not correlate with hearing thresholds. However, accuracy in verbally identifying background sounds was worse in those with greater ARHL, suggesting difficulty with recognizing acoustic scenes. Results indicate that mild-to-moderate hearing loss has little impact on middle-aged and older adults' ability to form long-term memory for auditory target-context associations under the conditions of this study. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48426,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Aging","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148971771","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"From sensation to decision: Dissociating sensory and cognitive changes in temperature and pain perception across the lifespan.","authors":"Camilla E Krænge, Alexandra G Mitchell, Jesper Fischer Ehmsen, Arthur S Courtin, Francesca Fardo","doi":"10.1037/pag0001022","DOIUrl":"10.1037/pag0001022","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Spatial integration of sensory inputs is critical for temperature and pain perception, yet how aging alters these processes remains poorly understood. Using psychophysics combined with drift diffusion modeling, we demonstrate that spatial summation and lateral inhibition, two fundamental mechanisms of sensory integration, exhibit dissociable patterns of age-related change that depend on thermal modality and stimulation intensity. Participants (20-80 years) received cold and warm thermal stimuli of differing intensities, made binary decisions, and provided subjective ratings. Ratings and response times were modeled for stimuli delivered in spatially summating or laterally inhibiting configurations. Spatial summation declined with age for cold but not warm, particularly at low intensities, indicating modality-specific degradation of sensory integration. Drift diffusion modeling showed that this age-related reduction was expressed at the perceptual level, but not in the spatial modulation of drift rates, suggesting preserved efficiency in transforming sensory inputs into decision evidence. Lateral inhibition remained largely stable across the lifespan but displayed modality-dependent modulations. Overall, irrespective of spatial configuration, older adults exhibited lower drift rates and adopted more cautious decision policies, with stable nondecision times during evidence accumulation but slower postdecisional responses across ages. Finally, we found no reliable evidence for either positive or negative correlations between spatial summation and lateral inhibition, both behaviorally and computationally, suggesting that these processes may operate independently rather than in competition. These findings indicate that aging impairs cold spatial summation while preserving warmth-related processing and decision-level integration efficiency. This pattern is indicative of modality-specific neural mechanisms shaping thermosensory decision making across the lifespan. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48426,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Aging","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148971797","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Cognitive impacts of learning and using digital technology in older adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis.","authors":"Shenghao Zhang, Dorota Kossowska-Kuhn, Gillian Gouveia","doi":"10.1037/pag0001028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/pag0001028","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>A recent meta-analysis of cross-sectional and prospective cohort studies has shown strong evidence that digital technology exposure is associated with reduced risk of cognitive impairment in middle-aged and older adults. Given the observational nature of the reviewed studies, it is unclear whether the observed associations reflect causal effects. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to examine the causal relation between technology exposure and cognition in middle-aged and older adults. We conducted a search in APA PsycInfo, PubMed, Web of Science, and Dissertation and Thesis (Global). Studies were included if they were experimental studies examining cognitive benefits of digital exposure against one or more control group(s) in middle-aged and older adults (over age 50). Fourteen studies met the inclusion criteria, of which 12 provided sufficient data to calculate effect sizes. All included studies focused on older adults (over age 60). Results of the random-effects models showed that providing digital technologies or digital technology training to older adults benefits their cognition (<i>g</i> = 0.11, 95% CI [0.03, 0.19]) compared with control conditions. These results suggest that digital exposure leads to cognitive benefits. However, the evidence is preliminary because the magnitude of the effect is small with substantial heterogeneity (95% Prediction interval [-0.31, 0.53]), and the underlying mechanism is unclear. Therefore, the practical implications of relying on digital exposure to prevent cognitive decline in the absence of structured programs or targeted interventions are limited. Future research needs to include granular, objectively quantified use metrics and incorporate psychosocial mediators to uncover the underlying mechanism of the observed benefit. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48426,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Aging","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148971794","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Age-related changes in the subjective and objective detail of memory and imagination.","authors":"Aleea L Devitt, Farrah Sow","doi":"10.1037/pag0001024","DOIUrl":"10.1037/pag0001024","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Aging is associated with reduced episodic detail when remembering and imagining life events, at least when measuring detail objectively. But self-reported, or subjective, ratings of event vividness often increase with age. Moreover, the relationship between objective and subjective measures of detail deteriorates with age, in that events containing more episodic detail are not necessarily rated as more vivid. The present study tests a possible reason for this disconnect: Older adults rely more on nonepisodic content, such as semantic detail, when making vividness ratings. We examined age-related changes in the relationship between event content and vividness judgements when retrieving autobiographical memories, and when imagining past and future events. Both younger and older adults considered events containing more episodic detail to be more vivid. For memories and imagined past events, this effect was stronger for younger than older adults, but the relationship reversed for future events. Contrary to hypotheses, younger adults judged events with more personal semantic detail as being more vivid, while older adults did not. Notably, there was no age-related decrease in the overall amount of episodic detail produced, which could be due to the videoconference format of the interviews. While the breakdown in the relationship between objective and subjective memory with age does not seem to be due to differences in the event content assessed here, our results reveal important differences across past and future-oriented events. Moreover, although older adults typically generate more semantic detail overall, they are less likely to use this detail to support vivid (re-)experience. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48426,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Aging","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148971727","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}