Influence of Culture on Learning and Decision Making with Age

老龄化的影响在很大程度上被认为是跨不同文化的普遍现象。很少有研究验证这一假设。 具有普遍性，其中一些揭示了跨文化认知随年龄的差异。拟议的研究将 评估文化(美国/台湾)和文化价值观(集体主义/独立)如何影响认知老化 使用行为和神经成像(FMRI)测量来比较不同文化背景下的年轻人和老年人。这个 研究计划将采用纵向测量，评估相同个体的行为和大脑变化 经过3年的随访。纵向方法对于确定极端年龄之间的差异是很重要的 群体(例如，20岁与70岁)反映的是老龄化的影响，而不是其他潜在的队列差异。连 短短几年的纵向跟踪期足以识别性能或业务量的下降 在一些大脑区域，尽管较少的工作研究了衰老对大脑功能活动的纵向影响。 此外，纵向测量可能具有识别年龄夸大下降的敏感度，这可能表明 与衰老相关的病理过程，如轻度认知障碍(MCI)或阿尔茨海默病(AD)。 也就是说，在神经心理、决策或记忆方面表现较差的老年人 时间1的任务在时间2可能表现出更明显的下降，而老年人在时间2的表现更高 级别。随着时间的推移显著下降可能是病理性衰老的标志(例如，MCI或AD)。任务 被选为这项研究的人在检测衰老的功能障碍模式方面表现出了希望；我们将进一步测试 这些标记在不同文化中是否同样敏感。尽管决策和记忆能力都可以 受老龄化的影响，选定的任务与基于价值的决策在很大程度上是互补的系统 依靠额纹状体系统和参与内侧颞区的记忆过程。一个框架 表明这些系统对病理性衰老过程(例如AD)的脆弱性不同，从而使 额纹状体系统在很大程度上反映了典型的衰老过程，而AD对颞叶的影响不成比例。 顶叶区域。我们可以通过研究决策和记忆来检验这个模型。 在纵向上跨越年轻人和老年人的过程，跨文化扩展模式。建议数 研究将解决三个主要问题：1)文化和文化价值观如何促进基于价值的 决策与年龄有关，2)年龄是否持续影响不同文化的外显记忆，以及3)对什么有影响 决策和记忆中的文化差异从横向到纵向的概括程度 (参与者内部)老龄化的衡量标准。这项研究将由两名有合作历史的研究人员领导 他们在美国(Gutchess)和台湾(Goh)建立了衰老研究流水线。此外，PIS的领域 研究专业知识是相辅相成的，吴博士的实验室研究年龄、文化和决策的影响 Making和Gutchess博士的实验室专注于年龄和文化对记忆的影响。

The effects of aging are largely assumed to be universal across different cultures. Few studies test this assumption of universality, with some revealing cross-cultural differences in cognition with age. The proposed research will assess how culture (American/Taiwan) and cultural values (collectivism/independence) affect cognitive aging by comparing younger and older adults across cultures using behavioral and neuroimaging (fMRI) measures. The research program will employ longitudinal measures, assessing behavior and brain changes in the same individuals after a 3 year follow-up. Longitudinal approaches are important to establish that differences between extreme age groups (e.g., 20 vs. 70 year olds) reflect effects of aging rather than other potential cohort differences. Even longitudinal follow-up periods as short as a few years are sufficient to identify declines in performance or the volume of some brain regions, though less work has investigated effects of aging on functional brain activity longitudinally. Moreover, longitudinal measures may have sensitivity to identify exaggerated declines in aging, which could indicate pathological processes associated with aging, such as mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or Alzheimer’s disease (AD). That is, older adults who show poorer levels of performance on neuropsychological, decision making, or memory tasks at time 1 may show more pronounced decline at time 2, compared to those older adults performing at higher levels. Pronounced decline over time may serve as a marker of pathological aging (e.g., MCI or AD). The tasks selected for this research have shown promise in detecting dysfunctional patterns of aging; we will further test whether the markers are equally sensitive across cultures. Although both decision making and memory abilities can be affected by aging, the selected tasks engage largely complementary systems, with value-based decision making relying on frontostriatal systems and memory processes engaging medial temporal regions. One framework suggests that these systems differ in their vulnerability to pathological aging processes (e.g., AD) such that the frontostriatal systems largely reflect typical aging processes whereas AD disproportionately impacts temporo- parietal regions. We can test this model in the proposed research by studying decision making and memory processes across younger and older adults longitudinally, extending the model across cultures. The proposed research will address three major questions: 1) how do culture and cultural values contribute to value-based decision-making with age, 2) does aging consistently impact explicit memory across cultures, and 3) to what extent do cultural differences in decision making and memory generalize from cross-sectional to longitudinal (within-participant) measures of aging. This research will be led by two researchers with a history of collaboration who have established lines of aging research in the US (Gutchess) and Taiwan (Goh). Furthermore, the PIs areas of research expertise are complementary, with Dr. Goh’s lab investigating effects of age and culture and decision making and Dr. Gutchess’ lab focused on effects of age and culture on memory.