Cognitive Test Performance of African American Elders

神经心理学测试在少数人群中的特异性较差，因此误诊为痴呆症是可能的。 因此，与非西班牙裔白人相比，认知正常的非洲裔美国人更有可能。期间 在之前的资助期间，这项研究直接解决了认知障碍的误诊问题， 通过测量不同的文化和教育因素， 然后利用这些数据来了解种族和文化对认知测试的作用 性能我们的工作确定了可以明确衡量的文化和教育经验的各个方面 并将这些变量与横截面和纵向的测试性能相关联。我们发现， 考虑到识字水平（教育质量的估计）、教育考试成绩的差异， 相匹配的非裔美国人和白色老人基本上消失了。不分种族，文化水平是 对语言和非语言能力指标的表现有最强的预测作用，对未来的预测作用最好。 记忆衰退尽管识字对认知有广泛的影响，但一些研究人员认为， 识字的主要影响是对特定缓冲或短期存储系统的功能， 语音回路然而，这一理论的提出并没有充分评估视觉空间的短期影响。 记忆或工作记忆的特征任务。到目前为止，该项目已经产生了对 文化和教育经历对认知测试表现的作用以及认知能力下降的风险 时间目前的提案将利用这些见解来指导对文化、识字、 和认知。研究的三个目的是：1）使用资源特性和广泛的识字测量 判断阅读认可度是否真实反映教育质量的技能; 2）判断 学校资源变量是否是认知能力下降和痴呆症发展的最佳预测因子 不分种族; 3）测试识字影响视觉空间材料的储存和视觉空间材料的储存的假设。 中央执行或工作记忆的功能，通过管理特定的和良好表征的任务， 语言和视觉空间信息的存储和处理。

Neuropsychological tests have poor specificity among minority populations and thus misdiagnosis of dementia is thus more likely among cognitively normal African Americans as compared to non-Hispanic Whites. During the prior funding period, this study directly addressed the problem of misdiagnosis of cognitive impairment and dementia among African American elders by measuring cultural and educational factors that differ within and between racial groups, and then using these data to understand of the role of race and culture on cognitive test performance. Our work identified aspects of cultural and educational experience that could be explicitly measured and related these variables to test performance both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. We found that after accounting for literacy level (an estimate of quality of education), differences in the test performance of education- matched African American and White elders largely disappeared. Regardless of race, literacy level was the strongest predictor of performance on measures of verbal and nonverbal ability and the best predictor of future memory decline. Despite this wide-ranging effect of literacy on cognition, several researchers have suggested that the primary influence of literacy is on the functioning of a specific buffer or short-term storage system, the phonological loop. However, this theory has been put forth without adequately assessing visuospatial short-term memory or well characterized tasks of working memory. To date, this project has generated major insights into the role of cultural and educational experience on cognitive test performance and the risk of cognitive decline over time. The current proposal will use these insights to guide new studies of the relationship between culture, literacy, and cognition. The three aims of the study are to: 1) use resource characteristics and a broad measure of literacy skill to determine if a measure of reading recognition is a true reflection of quality of education; 2) determine whether school resource variables are the best predictors of cognitive decline and development of dementia regardless of race; and 3) test the hypotheses that literacy affects storage of visuospatial material and the functioning of the central executive or working memory, by administering specific and well characterized tasks of storage and manipulation of verbal and visuospatial information.