Social Cognition and Aging

描述（由申请人提供）：拟议的研究将检查 认知功能的老化相关变化，目的是了解 基本认知技能、目标和知识的规范性变化如何影响 在日常生活中发挥作用。据推测，获得和 准确地表示来自社会背景的信息是一个重要的预测因素 适应性功能。与日常功能有关的许多信息 (e.g.,医疗、金融、消费者）通过社会背景传播， 包括媒体（例如，电视、报纸）和与他人的互动 (e.g.,医生、财务规划师）。因此，重要的是要了解 在这种情况下，衰老可能对推理产生的影响。在本研究中， 据推测，与年龄有关的基本效率下降， 认知功能对老年人的控制能力有负面影响 注意力和操作记忆中的信息。这反过来又导致 随着年龄的增长，决策和判断的准确性降低， 记忆中信息的特异性和随之而来的影响力的增加 不相关的信息。然而，也有人假设，老年人 适应这些基本认知功能的负面变化，（a） 选择性地支出有限的资源;（B）发展强大的 解释性的知识结构，允许复杂的思维， 消耗认知资源。这两个因素可能有助于解释为什么许多老年人 成年人在日常生活中继续有效地发挥作用。在本研究中， 20至85岁的成年人将在实验室模拟日常生活中进行测试。 研究这两种影响对 代表权和决策权。实验将在其中进行， 特定的年龄相关因素被隔离和操纵，以衡量 对业绩的影响。观察到的年龄相关差异也将 根据能力、健康和其他背景因素进行检查， 以更好地了解潜在的因果机制。长期山羊是 开发一个模型，描述老龄化对社会认知的影响， 为了帮助我们了解影响老年人的因素， 在日常生活中发挥作用。这也将有助于我们的能力， 构建环境以最大限度地适应衰老过程。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed research will examine aging-related changes in cognitive functioning, with the goal of understanding how normative changes in basic cognitive skills, goals, and knowledge influence functioning in everyday contexts. It is assumed that the ability to acquire and accurately represent information from social contexts is an important predictor of adaptive functioning. Much information relating to everyday functioning (e.g., medical, financial, consumer) is transmitted through social contexts, including the media (e.g., television, newspapers) and interactions with others (e.g., physicians, financial planners). Thus, it is important to understand the impact that aging might have on reasoning in such contexts. In this research, it is hypothesized that aging-related decrements in the efficiency of basic cognitive functions negatively impact upon older adults' ability to control attention and operate on information in memory. This, in turn, results in reductions in the accuracy of decisions and judgments with aging due to less specificity of information in memory and a concomitant increase in the impact of irrelevant information. It is also hypothesized, however, that older adults adapt to these negative changes in basic cognitive functions by (a) being more selective in their expenditure of limited resources and (b) developing powerful interpretive knowledge structures that permit complex thinking with minimum drain on cognitive resources. These two factors may help explain why many older adults continue to function effectively in everyday life. In this research, adults aged from 20 to 85 wilt be tested in laboratory analogues of everyday situations to examine the impact of these two types of influences on representation and decision-making. Experiments will be conducted in which specific age-related factors are isolated and manipulated in order to gauge their impact on performance. Observed age-related differences will also be examined in relation to ability, health, and other contextual factors in order to better understand potential causal mechanisms. The long-term goat is the development of a model that will describe aging effects on social cognition in order to assist us in understanding the factors that influence older adults' functioning in everyday life. This should also facilitate our ability to structure environments to maximize adaptation to the aging process.