School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
J Clin Exp Neuropsychol. 2021 Apr;43(3):238-254. doi: 10.1080/13803395.2021.1909709. Epub 2021 Apr 26.
: Previous research has suggested that individual differences in executive functions, memory and reinforcement sensitivity are associated with performance on behavioral decision-making tasks. Decision-making performance may also decline with age, however there is a lack of research on the interplay of cognitive and affective processes, and their impact on older adult decision-making. This study examined associations between executive functions, memory and reinforcement sensitivity on the Game of Dice Task (a measure of decision-making under explicit risk) among older adults.: One thousand and two older adults without cognitive impairment (aged 72-78 years) participated as part of an Australian longitudinal cohort study (the Personality and Total Health Through Life study). Decision-making sub-types were identified through cluster analysis and multinomial logistic regression was used to assess associations with measures of cognition and reinforcement sensitivity.: Cluster analysis identified three decision-making sub-types, which we label "advantageous," "disadvantageous" and "switching." Multivariate analyses found that relative to the mid-performing "switching" sub-type, advantageous decision-makers were more likely to be younger, male and have higher scores on a test of verbal learning. Disadvantageous decision-makers were more likely to have poorer scores on some components of executive function (set shifting, but not working memory or inhibitory control), although this effect was partly attenuated by a measure of reinforcement sensitivity (reward responsiveness).: These results indicate that specific components of learning and executive functions are influential in decision-making under explicit risk among a sample of older adults.
先前的研究表明，个体在执行功能、记忆和强化敏感性方面的差异与行为决策任务的表现相关。然而，随着年龄的增长，决策表现可能会下降，但关于认知和情感过程的相互作用及其对老年决策者的影响的研究还很缺乏。本研究考察了执行功能、记忆和强化敏感性与老年人在明确风险下的骰子游戏任务（一种决策测量）之间的关联。
1021 名认知功能正常的老年人（年龄 72-78 岁）作为澳大利亚纵向队列研究（人格与终生健康研究）的一部分参与了研究。通过聚类分析确定了决策子类型，然后使用多项逻辑回归评估了与认知和强化敏感性测量的关联。
聚类分析确定了三种决策子类型，我们分别标记为“有利”、“不利”和“转换”。多变量分析发现，与表现居中的“转换”子类型相比，有利的决策者更年轻、更可能是男性，并且在词汇学习测试中得分更高。不利的决策者在某些执行功能（转换能力，但不是工作记忆或抑制控制）的某些成分上的得分更差，尽管这一效应部分被强化敏感性（奖励反应性）的测量所减弱。
这些结果表明，在老年人群体中，学习和执行功能的特定成分对明确风险下的决策有影响。
