Lifespan Developmental Psych 4/9/19
Physical losses of old age
 Diminished…
o Strength
o Endurance
o Balance
o Reaction time
o Sleep
o Height
o Bone mass
o Weight (lean body mass – bone mass, muscle mass)
o Muscle strength declining
Chronic conditions & disabilities
 Leading causes of death in old age in U.S.
o Heart disease
o Cancer
o Stroke
o Lower respiratory disease
o Diabetes
o Influenza/pneumonia
Mental problems
 Increase in…
o Depression
o Dementia
 Alzheimer’s
 Parkinson’s
 Multi-infarct dementia
 Caused by series of small strokes
Measuring older adults’ intelligence
 Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)
 Seattle Longitudinal Study: use it or lose it
o Indicates tremendous variation
o Cognitive performance can be improved
o Cognitive deterioration may be related to disuse
Everyday problem solving
 Effectiveness remains stable until late adulthood, then declines
 Important factors include
o Emotional relevance of problem
o Whether problem is interpersonal (better performance) or instrumental (worse
performance)
Changes in processing abilities
 Declines
o Abilities needed for complex new skills
o Ability to switch focus or attention
 Maintain
o Skills that depend on habits and knowledge
Memory changes
 STM
o Sensory
o Working memory
 Less capacity
 LTM
o Episodic
 Memory for specific events
o Semantic
 Knowledge
o Procedural
 How to do something
o Semantic & procedural don’t decline much with age; episodic depends on how
long ago the event was
Older adults and metamemory
 Thinking about thinking
o Older adults more than younger adults report
 More perceived changes in memory
 Less memory capacity
 Less control over memory
Memory loss and brain functioning
 Areas where brain deterioration occurs
o Hippocampus
 Episodic memory
o ??????
Cognitive performance
 Deterioration is related to disuse
 Keeping the mind plastic with training helps improve cognitive performance
o Mnemonics – techniques to help ppl remember
Wisdom
 Breadth and depth of practical knowledge
 Ability to reflect on knowledge
 Emotional maturity
 Baltes’ research