Question 1

Older adults are better than younger adults at remembering __________.

Accepted Answer

Older adults are better than younger adults at remembering the situations to which news stories refer because they have more experience and knowledge to draw upon.

Question 2

What change in self-initiated processing occurs as a result of the natural aging process?

Accepted Answer

As a result of the natural aging process, self-initiated processing decreases. This can be seen in tasks such as problem-solving, where older adults tend to take longer to initiate a solution than younger adults.

Question 3

A memory task that is more likely to show the effects of a decline in self-initiated process is __________.

Accepted Answer

Recall requires the individual to retrieve information from memory without any prompting or cues, which relies heavily on self-initiated processing. Recognition and perceptual identification can be aided by external cues or prompts, while word fragment completion involves a combination of self-initiated processing and external cues.

Question 4

Changes in self-initiated processing in older adults can be attributed to changes in __________.

Accepted Answer

The frontal lobes are responsible for executive functioning, including self-initiated processing. As aging occurs, there are changes in the frontal lobes that can lead to a decline in this ability. Decreased numbers of mitochondria and slower metabolisms may be factors in aging, but they are not directly related to changes in self-initiated processing. The older adults' shuffling gait is also not directly related to changes in self-initiated processing.

Question 5

How does semantic memory change in old age?

Accepted Answer

Semantic memory, which includes our knowledge of facts and concepts, generally continues to develop or at least remains stable into old age. This is because it is accumulated over a lifetime of experiences and learning, which does not significantly decline with age.

Question 6

How much does the organization of information in episodic memory change as people grow old?

Accepted Answer

Episodic memory is the memory of specific events that have happened in a person's life. As people grow old, the organization of information in episodic memory changes very little. This is because the information in episodic memory is stored in a way that is very resistant to change.

Question 7

Which type of memory is affected the most negatively by aging?

Accepted Answer

Episodic memory for details, or the ability to remember specific events, experiences, and details, is the type of memory that is most negatively affected by aging. This can lead to difficulty remembering specific names, dates, and events.

Question 8

How does prospective memory change with advancing age?

Accepted Answer

Prospective memory, especially time-based, tends to decline with age due to decreased cognitive resources and processing speed.

Question 9

What does NOT decline with aging?

Accepted Answer

Semantic memory, which involves facts and general knowledge, tends to remain stable or even improve with age, unlike episodic or declarative memory, which can decline.

Question 10

What is the positivity effect found with old age?

Accepted Answer

The positivity effect found with old age refers to the tendency for older adults to focus on and remember more positive information than negative information. This is often attributed to a desire for emotional stability and well-being in later life.

Question 11

How are older adults affected by emotional content in memory compared to younger adults?

Accepted Answer

Older adults tend to be more affected by emotional content in memory compared to younger adults due to the positivity effect, where they focus more on positive information and emotions.

Question 12

What is one of the things that stays the same in memory as people get older?

Accepted Answer

Priming effects, which involve the increased sensitivity to certain stimuli due to prior experience, tend to remain similar as people age. This aspect of memory, unlike recall memory, declarative memory, and processing speed, shows less decline with age.

Question 13

What is one of the things that changes in memory as people get older?

Accepted Answer

As people get older, source memory (the ability to remember where and how information was learned) becomes less reliable. This is likely due to changes in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, which are important for source memory processing. There may also be declines in recognition memory, but this is not as consistent across all individuals. Temporal lobes do degrade with age, but not excessively, and encoding specificity remains important throughout the lifespan.

Question 14

To help maintain memory abilities as one ages, it is important to be ___________ active.

Accepted Answer

Engaging in physical, intellectual, and social activities can all contribute to maintaining and improving memory abilities as one ages.

Question 15

Which of the following declines as we get old?

Accepted Answer

As we age, our recall memory declines. This means we have difficulty retrieving information from long-term memory. Priming effects, recognition memory, and remembering well-learned information may also decline with age, but recall memory is the most affected.

Question 16

Because of changes in cognitive processing that occur with age, during a jury trial, older adults might be ________ to have a recommendation of a criminal sentence influenced by knowledge they were given but were told is irrelevant.

Accepted Answer

Older adults are more likely to be influenced by information they were given, even if they were told it is irrelevant, due to changes in cognitive processing that occur with age.

Question 17

All the following change as a function of age, EXCEPT __________.

Accepted Answer

The answer of All the following change as a function...

Question 18

In old age, memory is ________ influenced by context information and there is ________ emphasis on emotional information.

Accepted Answer

In old age, memory is less influenced by context information and there is greater emphasis on emotional information. This means that in their later years, people tend to remember emotionally charged events more vividly, but may struggle to remember the details surrounding those events.

Question 19

Which of the following aspects of memory performance does not change with natural aging?

Accepted Answer

Recognition memory is the ability to identify previously encountered information, such as recognizing a face or a word. This aspect of memory performance does not significantly decline with natural aging, whereas recall memory and source memory tend to decline with age. Context dependency, the ability to remember information better in a specific context, may also be affected by age-related changes in memory.

Question 20

Compared to younger adults, older adults are ________ sensitive to emotional information.

Accepted Answer

Research has shown that older adults tend to be more sensitive to emotional information compared to younger adults. This is due to changes in the brain's emotional processing centers and increased life experience, which allow older adults to better regulate their emotional responses.

Quiz 15: Development