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Improving the Mind with a Hop, Skip, and a Jump
Jing Chen
Christopher A. Kurby
Part 1: What changes?
“Oh, getting old isn’t so bad, except for maybe a little forgetfulness.”
• Memory complaints are common among older adults (Galvin, 2005).
• Memory complaints is a major issue that are reported by those entering medical clinics for help (Galvin, 2005).
Age and Episodic Memory
Memory for lists of words
Memory for stories that were just read
Memory for pairs of words
Memory for map directions
Why are there declines in memory with age?
• Reduced processing speed (Salthouse, 1996)
– How quickly you can solve a problem, or make simple judgments.
• Older adults have worse sensory functioning
• ****Less physical fitness *****
Resnick et al., 2003
Different regions show different among of age-related changes
Resnick et al., 2003 – Loss of gray matters
Raz, et al., 2005
A 5-year study of healthy older adults (mean age 63.79)
Learning
Thinking
Memory
Thinking
Learning
Memory
Implicit Memory - Semantic Priming
• Target word: Nurse
– Unrelated: Butter
– Related: Doctor
Data from Hutchison et al (2008)
300
350
400
450
500
550
600
650
700
Young Old
Nam
ingTime(ms)
Unrelated
Related
Older
Positive
Negative
Neutral
Charles, Mather & Carstensen (2003)
Mather et al. (2004)
Stereotypes and Aging
0.00
0.10
0.20
0.30
0.40
0.50
0.60
0.70
Hess et al, 2003 JoG
POSITIVE NEUTRAL NEGATIVE
YNG
OLDER
Can we improve memory, thinking, and even the brain itself?