Psychology and Aging最新文献

{"title":"Age-related changes in attention switching: Cognitive and sensory factors in selective listening.","authors":"Luigi Falanga, Thomas Deutsch, Janina Fels, Klaus Willmes, Denise N Stephan, Iring Koch","doi":"10.1037/pag0000967","DOIUrl":"10.1037/pag0000967","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Age-related impairments in selective listening may result from a mixture of cognitive and sensory factors. This study used a task-switching variant of selective listening and compared performance of 47 younger and 47 older adults to investigate auditory attention switching and target-distractor segregation across two experimental sessions. In each session, participants also completed a pure-tone audiometry to assess hearing capacity. In each experimental trial, two words were played from separate locations. Guided by visual cues, participants categorized the target speech at the cued location while ignoring the distractor speech. Results revealed robust age-related slowing. Both groups showed performance costs when the target location switched across sequential trials (i.e., switch costs). However, even after accounting for individual differences in hearing capacity, older adults exhibited greater switch costs, suggesting an age-related deficit in cognitive control. Moreover, while younger adults showed reduced switch costs across sessions, older adults showed little to no decrease, indicating constrained adaptation to flexible task demands. Furthermore, age-related differences in the congruency effect (i.e., reflecting target-distractor segregation) emerged primarily during switch trials, driven by older adults' increased distractor interference under conditions requiring attention switching. Although in the error rates switching auditory attention may be partially compromised by nonpathological levels of hearing loss, sensory decline alone could not fully account for the age-related performance differences observed in our cued selective listening task, likely reflecting deficits in cognitive control of attention. Together, these findings underscore the impact of cognitive factors on older adults' ability to switch auditory attention and segregate competing auditory information independent of age-related sensory differences in hearing capacity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48426,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Aging","volume":" ","pages":"481-496"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145960651","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 differences in the lexical priming effect can be predominantly attributed to differences in response bias.","authors":"M Eric Cui, Cristina D Rabaglia, Bruce A Schneider","doi":"10.1037/pag0000964","DOIUrl":"10.1037/pag0000964","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Age-related declines in visual perception challenge older adults' ability to locate and identify objects in noisy (e.g., fog, glare, inadequate lighting) or cluttered visual environments. To compensate, older adults often increase reliance on contextual information, which could be helpful, but may also lead to increased risk for \"false seeing\"-reporting expected objects based on contextual information rather than those actually presented-a phenomenon that Jacoby et al. (2012) observed in older adults under challenging viewing conditions. However, it remains unaddressed whether such false seeing is driven by older adults' elevated tendency to rely on context or by age-related declines in visual perceptual processes. The present study addressed this issue by examining the lexical priming effects in 18 younger and 18 older adults (<i>M</i> = 21.4 years; <i>M</i> = 76.2 years) in Experiment 1 and 13 younger and 13 older adults (<i>M</i> = 21.2 years; <i>M</i> = 74.8 years) in Experiment 2 using a two-alternative, forced-choice paradigm, while controlling for age-related perceptual differences. On each trial, participants identified a visually degraded target word preceded by an identical, semantically related, or unrelated prime. We applied signal detection theory to isolate perceptual sensitivity (<i>d</i>') and response bias (<i>c</i>). Results revealed that once stimulus parameters were adjusted to eliminate age differences in performance when the prime was unrelated to the target, age-related differences in target identification in the related priming conditions were predominantly driven by age-related differences in response bias rather than in any residual age differences in perceptual sensitivity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48426,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Aging","volume":" ","pages":"544-554"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145991160","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":"Context reinstatement effects in younger and older adults' memory: A meta-analysis.","authors":"Nikoletta Symeonidou, Christine Emmer, Liliane Wulff, Beatrice G Kuhlmann","doi":"10.1037/pag0000965","DOIUrl":"10.1037/pag0000965","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Memory improves when encoding and retrieval occur in the same context-a phenomenon known as the context reinstatement (CR) effect. CR is well established in younger adults (Smith & Vela, 2001), yet it remains unclear whether older adults benefit from contextual support as effectively. Addressing this question, this meta-analysis synthesized findings from 22 articles (33 studies, 106 effect sizes, <i>N</i> = 2,177) comparing CR effects in younger and older adults across various types of contexts, encoding instructions, and memory paradigms, thereby extending the previous review by Smith and Vela (2001). Overall, CR reliably enhanced memory in both age groups (Hedges' <i>g</i> = 0.32), with no age-related difference in effect size. This comparable benefit held despite 72% of primary studies reporting typical age-related declines in memory. This suggests that older adults retain the ability to encode and retrieve item-context associations when strategic retrieval demands are minimized, aligning with the environmental support hypothesis (Craik, 1983) and challenging a strict interpretation of the associative deficit hypothesis (Naveh-Benjamin, 2000). Moderator analyses indicated that CR effects were overall weaker when item pairs with associative instructions were encoded, compared to single items. Furthermore, CR effects tended to reduce when switched contexts were familiar, rather than novel at retrieval. No age-specific moderation was found. However, a lack of variation of encoding demands, context types, and memory tests across empirical studies limited statistical power for such moderator analyses. Overall, more research is needed to systematically examine potential conditions under which age differences in CR may emerge. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48426,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Aging","volume":" ","pages":"525-543"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145960641","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":"The search for meaning: Age-related differences in the semantic N400 effect for picture pairs are unrelated to semantic benefits in episodic memory.","authors":"Véronique Huffer, Regine Bader, Axel Mecklinger","doi":"10.1037/pag0000959","DOIUrl":"10.1037/pag0000959","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Older age is characterized by attenuated episodic memory but intact semantic memory. At the same time, online semantic processing, particularly the prediction of lexical information, is attenuated, as reflected by a smaller event-related potential N400 effect for expected versus unexpected items. Previous research focused on semantic processing of verbal materials. However, we aimed at investigating not only age-related differences in the semantic processing of pictorial materials but also the relationship between such age-related differences and associative memory performance. Using picture pairs, we investigated whether age-related differences in online semantic processing, as manifested in the N400, are reflected in a behavioral measure of semantic processing (i.e., perceived semantic congruency) and, in addition, transfer to associative episodic memory. Younger and older adults studied sequentially presented object pairs with and without semantic relationships (e.g., a bathtub followed by a rubber duck, or a pillow followed by a punch, respectively). Their task was to judge the object pairs' semantic congruency. Thereafter, an associative memory test was conducted, in which participants had to discriminate between intact, recombined, and new object pairs. In the study phase, younger adults showed the expected N400 attenuation effect for semantically related pairs. For older adults, this effect was reduced, even though there was no difference between both age groups either in the magnitude of the semantic congruency judgments or in the behavioral congruency effect. Furthermore, both age groups showed highly similar benefits for semantically related pairs in the ensuing associative memory test. In conclusion, older adults seem to rely more on bottom-up stimulus-driven integrative processes instead of applying top-down predictive processes initiated by preactivated semantic knowledge. Furthermore, older adults' online semantic processing seems to be decoupled from the processing that results in associative memory benefit from semantic relations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48426,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Aging","volume":" ","pages":"467-480"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145960649","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 meta-analysis of false memory in healthy and pathological cognitive aging.","authors":"Sheng-Yin Huan, Henry Otgaar, Mark L Howe, Yun-Rui Liu, Hong-Zhou Xu, Jianqin Wang, Jing Yu","doi":"10.1037/pag0000966","DOIUrl":"10.1037/pag0000966","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Although there is a consensus about age-related impairments in true memory, the relationship between aging and false memory remains less clear. Both the fuzzy-trace theory and the activation-monitoring theory postulate possible effects of cognitive aging on the processes of encoding, consolidation, and retrieval. Yet, quantitative analyses of cognitive aging, both healthy (younger vs. older adults) and pathological (older adults vs. mild cognitive impairment/Alzheimer's disease), on false memory have not been conducted. We meta-analyzed 150 articles with 414 independent effect sizes and found a robust aging effect of false memory, with older adults showing higher levels of false memory than younger adults in both spontaneous (Hedges's <i>g</i> = 0.538, 95% CI [0.432, 0.644]) and suggestion-induced false memory (Hedges's <i>g</i> = 0.460, 95% CI [0.255, 0.665]). Mild cognitive impairment/Alzheimer's disease patients showed significantly higher levels of spontaneous (Hedges's <i>g</i> = 0.486, 95% CI [0.053, 0.919]) but not suggestion-induced false memory (Hedges's <i>g</i> = 0.608, 95% CI [-0.286, 1.502]) than healthy older adults. For the study and test phase, moderator analyses indicated that experimental material, modality, true memory, paradigm, type of test, and the retention interval significantly influenced aging effect on false memory. For general moderators, participants' age and education level were also significant. Our results underscore the importance of integrating the fuzzy-trace theory and activation-monitoring theory to account for age differences in false memory across types. Both healthy and pathological cognitive aging increase susceptibility to false memory, and the decline in verbatim memory and monitoring functions, combined with hyperactivation during encoding, may account for aging effect in false memory. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48426,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Aging","volume":" ","pages":"497-524"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145960695","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":"Grandparents' cognition and caregiving for grandchildren: Frequency, type, and variety of activities.","authors":"Flavia S Chereches, Gabriel Olaru, Nicola Ballhausen, Yvonne Brehmer","doi":"10.1037/pag0000958","DOIUrl":"10.1037/pag0000958","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Previous research has indicated that a higher frequency of grandchild care is associated with better cognition and slower cognitive decline in grandparents. However, we do not know if specific caregiving activities (e.g., engaging in leisure activities with grandchildren, cooking for them) or the variety thereof affect grandparents' cognition and whether these effects are gender specific. Using latent growth curve models on three waves of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), which includes grandparents aged 50 and older (<i>N</i> > 1,700), we first compared caregiving grandparents to propensity score-matched noncaregiving grandparents. Then we examined the caregiving group specifically to understand if (a) caregiving frequency, (b) specific caregiving activities, or (c) the variety thereof predicted cognitive levels and decline. Both caregiving grandmothers and grandfathers showed higher levels of verbal fluency and episodic memory compared with matched controls, but only caregiving grandmothers showed less cognitive decline over time. Among caregiving grandparents, the frequency of caregiving did not predict cognitive functioning. However, grandparents with initially higher cognitive levels were more engaged in specific activities (e.g., spending leisure time with grandchildren, assisting them with homework) and participated in a wider variety of activities. Our findings reveal a link between grandchild care status and cognition among grandparents, while raising questions about the role of caregiving frequency and specific caregiving activities for cognitive level and decline. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48426,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Aging","volume":" ","pages":"429-443"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146054655","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":"The role of self-directed ageism in prospective memory function.","authors":"Sarah P Coundouris, Julie D Henry","doi":"10.1037/pag0000955","DOIUrl":"10.1037/pag0000955","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Self-directed ageism refers to the many ways in which ageist beliefs become increasingly self-relevant and internalized. Despite extensive literature documenting the harmful effects of self-directed ageism on cognition, it remains to be established whether two core domains of self-directed ageism (ageist beliefs and personal views of one's own aging) independently, but also potentially interactively, influence prospective memory function. Accordingly, the present study was designed to test these relationships. One hundred eighty-three adults aged 41-85 years participated in this study (<i>M</i>_age = 63.84; 46.45% female). Participants completed both self-report and real-world behavioral indicators of prospective memory ability, alongside measures of ageist beliefs and personal views of one's own aging. Hierarchical regressions revealed differential effects of self-directed ageism (after controlling for demographic covariates), such that more negative ageist beliefs and more positive personal views of aging uniquely (but not interactively) predicted objective prospective memory function. Notably, only more positive personal views of aging emerged as a unique predictor of subjective prospective memory function. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of how self-directed ageism affects cognitive functioning, highlighting the complex nature of this relationship and the need to consider self-directed ageism at the subdomain level. Given the critical role of prospective memory in maintaining autonomy and everyday functioning, these findings have important implications for clinical practice and future research aimed at improving quality of life in late adulthood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48426,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Aging","volume":" ","pages":"444-451"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146108007","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 group and experience impact partial cognitive offloading for value-based remembering.","authors":"Lois K Burnett, Lauren L Richmond","doi":"10.1037/pag0000957","DOIUrl":"10.1037/pag0000957","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Older adults have impaired episodic memory abilities, but they can remember high-value information just as well as young adults and exhibit improved performance on memory-based tasks via cognitive offloading. For young adults, benefits from offloading a subset of memoranda (i.e., partial offloading) stem from both using the external memory aid to access offloaded information and better memory for nonoffloaded information, termed the saving-enhanced memory effect. Whether older adults also exhibit a saving-enhanced memory benefit from offloading is not yet known. The present study investigated if and how young and older adults' partial cognitive offloading behaviors and the benefits conferred by partial offloading change following experience with this strategy. Across two experiments, participants studied lists of words associated with varying point values under both internal memory and partial offloading conditions with the goal of earning as many points as possible on a subsequent free recall test. Participants chose a subset of words to offload before and after receiving three trials of direct instruction (Experiment 1) or extended practice (Experiment 2) using partial offloading. Across experiments, experience with partial offloading improved overall performance for both young and older adults. However, even after acquiring experience using partial offloading, young adults, but not older adults, exhibited better memory for nonsaved items, akin to the saving-enhanced memory effect. Thus, older adults benefitted from the use of an external memory aid, but internal memory resources freed up by offloading were not effectively rededicated to remembering nonoffloaded information as has been observed in young adults. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48426,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Aging","volume":" ","pages":"452-466"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145991127","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":"Parsing inhibitory and mnemonic contributions to age-related decline in cognitive flexibility.","authors":"Emily R Weichart, Cole S Francis, Per B Sederberg","doi":"10.1037/pag0000996","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/pag0000996","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Cognitive flexibility (CF)-the ability to shift between mental sets as goals change-declines across the adult lifespan. Competing accounts attribute this decline either to deficits in specific underlying processes such as inhibition or memory or to broader challenges in coordinating these processes. Efforts to identify the root cause of CF decline by comparing performance across targeted tasks, however, have produced mixed findings. This work presents a unified task that simultaneously engages (a) CF through rule switches requiring participants to encode new task-relevant sets and inhibit outdated ones and (b) item-level inhibition of perceptual distractors. Eighty-six adults aged 18-73 completed the task. Accuracy analyses revealed asymmetric age effects across operations: learning following rule switches declined with age, whereas inhibition of perceptual distractors remained stable. Computational modeling further revealed that reduced rule-switching ability across age was primarily driven by reduced memory precision for task-relevant information, rather than impaired inhibition of outdated rules. These findings support a specific deficit account whereby age-related decline in memory precision has downstream effects on CF. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48426,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Aging","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2026-05-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148057701","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 lab to online: Replicating age-related decline in double-step reaching across the lifespan.","authors":"Shan Wang, Shujing Zhang","doi":"10.1037/pag0000991","DOIUrl":"10.1037/pag0000991","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Rapid online control (ROC) enables in-flight movement adjustments when targets shift unexpectedly and is critical for everyday function and safety, particularly in aging. Laboratory studies have reported mixed findings on age-related changes in ROC, with some attributing differences to general motor slowing. A recent lab-based study (Wang et al., 2025) demonstrated that older adults' prolonged correction latencies could not be fully explained by slowing and were linked to motor imagery ability. The present study replicated and extended these findings in a larger, continuous adult lifespan sample (<i>N</i> = 241; ages 20-79) using an online double-step reaching paradigm with mouse-cursor tracking. Linear mixed-effects models revealed robust age-related declines in ROC, characterized by longer correction latencies and more rigid corrective movements, even after accounting for device variability and general slowing. Participants increasingly relied on a speed-accuracy trade-off strategy with age, extending movement durations to preserve endpoint accuracy. While older adults' correction latency was linked to their motor imagery efficiency, unlike the previous lab study, the endpoint accuracy was not associated with motor imagery but primarily dependent on the kinematic feature of correction deviation. Moreover, response inhibition, measured by the stop-signal task, emerged as a robust predictor of correction efficiency across the lifespan. These findings confirm age-related declines in ROC under more heterogeneous, real-world conditions and show mouse-cursor tracking as a viable method for large-scale, online studies of motor control across the adult lifespan. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48426,"journal":{"name":"Psychology and Aging","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2026-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147965204","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}