School of Nursing, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, USA; Department of Imaging Sciences, University of Rochester, USA.
Department of Psychology, University of Essex, Colchester, UK.
Conscious Cogn. 2021 Nov;96:103226. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2021.103226. Epub 2021 Oct 21.
Understanding how age-related changes in cognition manifest in the real world is an important goal. One means of capturing these changes involves "experience sampling" participant's self-reported thoughts. Research has shown age-related changes in ongoing thought: e.g., older adults have fewer thoughts unrelated to the here-and-now. However, it is currently unclear how these changes reflect cognitive aging or lifestyle changes. 78 younger adults and 35 older adults rated their thought contents along 20 dimensions and the difficulty of their current activity in their daily lives. They also performed cognitive tasks in the laboratory. In a set of exploratory analyses, we found that older adults spent more time thinking positive, wanted thoughts, particularly in demanding contexts, and less time mind wandering about their future selves. Past-related thought related to episodic memory differently in older and younger adults. These findings inform the use of experience sampling to understand cognitive aging.
了解认知随年龄变化如何在现实世界中表现出来是一个重要目标。一种捕捉这些变化的方法是“经验采样”，即参与者自我报告的想法。研究表明，随着年龄的增长，思维会发生变化：例如，老年人的当下无关思维较少。然而，目前尚不清楚这些变化反映了认知老化还是生活方式的改变。78 名年轻成年人和 35 名年长成年人对他们日常生活中的 20 个维度的思维内容和当前活动的难度进行了评分。他们还在实验室中进行了认知任务。在一组探索性分析中，我们发现年长成年人在要求高的环境中，更多地花时间思考积极的、想要的想法，尤其是在要求高的环境中，更少地花时间思考未来的自己。过去相关的想法与情景记忆在年长和年轻成年人中表现不同。这些发现为使用经验采样来理解认知老化提供了信息。
