individual differences

Brain benefits from single workouts predict long-term benefits from exercise

  • A small study has shown that those who show the biggest brain benefits after a single exercise session also show the biggest long-term gains from a training program.

A small pilot study, in which participants had brain scans and working memory tests before and after single sessions of light and moderate intensity exercise and after a 12-week long training program, has shown that immediate cognitive effects from exercise mirror long-term ones. Participants who saw the biggest improvements in cognition and functional brain connectivity after single sessions of moderate-intensity physical activity also showed the biggest long-term gains in cognition and connectivity.

The finding suggests that the brain changes observed after a single workout study can be a biomarker of sorts for long-term training.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-03/cns-eau032219.php

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The findings were presented by Michelle Voss at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS) in San Francisco, March 23-26, 2019.

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Education & IQ linked to later cognitive decline & dementia

  • A large, long-running study found those with a college education maintained good cognition substantially longer than those who didn't complete high school.
  • A very large online study found that higher levels of education were strong predictors of better cognitive performance across all ages (15-60 years), but this was more true for types of cognition such as reasoning and less true for processing speed.
  • A large study of older men found that their cognitive ability at age 20 was a stronger predictor of cognitive function later in life than other factors, such as higher education, occupational complexity or engaging in late-life intellectual activities.

Americans with a college education live longer without dementia and Alzheimer's

Data from the large, long-running U.S. Health and Retirement Study found that healthy cognition characterized most of the people with at least a college education into their late 80s, while those who didn’t complete high school had good cognition up until their 70s.

The study found that those who had at least a college education lived a much shorter time with dementia than those with less than a high school education: an average of 10 months for men and 19 months for women, compared to 2.57 years (men) and 4.12 years (women).

The data suggests that those who graduated high school can expect to live (on average) at least 70% of their remaining life after 65 with good cogntion, compared to more than 80% for those with a college education, and less than 50% for those who didn't finish high school.

The analysis was based on a sample of 10,374 older adults (65+; average age 74) in 2000 and 9,995 in 2010.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-04/uosc-awa041618.php

https://academic.oup.com/psychsocgerontology/article/73/suppl_1/S20/4971564 (open access)

More education linked to better cognitive functioning later in life

Data from around 196,000 subscribers to Lumosity online brain-training games found that higher levels of education were strong predictors of better cognitive performance across the 15- to 60-year-old age range of their study participants, and appear to boost performance more in areas such as reasoning than in terms of processing speed.

Differences in performance were small for test subjects with a bachelor's degree compared to those with a high school diploma, and moderate for those with doctorates compared to those with only some high school education.

But people from lower educational backgrounds learned novel tasks nearly as well as those from higher ones.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-08/l-mel082117.php

http://www.futurity.org/higher-education-cognitive-peak-1523712/

Youthful cognitive ability strongly predicts mental capacity later in life

Data from more than 1,000 men participating in the Vietnam Era Twin Study of Aging revealed that their cognitive ability at age 20 was a stronger predictor of cognitive function later in life than other factors, such as higher education, occupational complexity or engaging in late-life intellectual activities.

All of the men, now in their mid-50s to mid-60s, took the Armed Forces Qualification Test at an average age of 20. The same test of general cognitive ability (GCA) was given in late midlife, plus assessments in seven cognitive domains.

GCA at age 20 accounted for 40% of the variance in the same measure at age 62, and approximately 10% of the variance in each of the seven cognitive domains. Lifetime education, complexity of job and engagement in intellectual activities each accounted for less than 1% of variance at average age 62.

The findings suggest that the impact of education, occupational complexity and engagement in cognitive activities on later life cognitive function simply reflects earlier cognitive ability.

The researchers speculated that the role of education in increasing GCA takes place primarily during childhood and adolescence when there is still substantial brain development.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-01/uoc--yca011819.php

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[4484] Crimmins, E. M., Saito Y., Kim J. Ki, Zhang Y. S., Sasson I., & Hayward M. D.
(2018).  Educational Differences in the Prevalence of Dementia and Life Expectancy with Dementia: Changes from 2000 to 2010.
The Journals of Gerontology: Series B. 73(suppl_1), S20 - S28.

Guerra-Carrillo, B., Katovich, K., & Bunge, S. A. (2017). Does higher education hone cognitive functioning and learning efficacy? Findings from a large and diverse sample. PLOS ONE, 12(8), e0182276. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0182276

[4485] Kremen, W. S., Beck A., Elman J. A., Gustavson D. E., Reynolds C. A., Tu X. M., et al.
(2019).  Influence of young adult cognitive ability and additional education on later-life cognition.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 116(6), 2021.

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Physical activity linked to better memory for names and faces among older adults

  • A small study adds to evidence that walking improves memory in older adults, and indicates that this is particularly helpful for memory tasks the seniors find challenging.

A small study that fitted 29 young adults (18-31) and 31 older adults (55-82) with a device that recorded steps taken and the vigor and speed with which they were made, has found that those older adults with a higher step rate performed better on memory tasks than those who were more sedentary. There was no such effect seen among the younger adults.

Improved memory was found for both visual and episodic memory, and was strongest with the episodic memory task. This required recalling which name went with a person's face — an everyday task that older adults often have difficulty with.

However, the effect on visual memory had more to do with time spent sedentary than step rate. With the face-name task, both time spent sedentary and step rate were significant factors, and both factors had a greater effect than they had on visual memory.

Depression and hypertension were both adjusted for in the analysis.

There was no significant difference in executive function related to physical activity, although previous studies have found an effect. Less surprisingly, there was also no significant effect on verbal memory.

Both findings might be explained in terms of cognitive demand. The evidence suggests that the effect of physical exercise is only seen when the task is sufficiently cognitively demanding. No surprise that verbal memory (which tends to be much less affected by age) didn't meet that challenge, but interestingly, the older adults in this study were also less impaired on executive function than on visual memory. This is unusual, and reminds us that, especially with small studies, you cannot ignore the individual differences.

This general principle may also account for the lack of effect among younger adults. It is interesting to speculate whether physical activity effects would be found if the younger adults were given much more challenging tasks (either by increasing their difficulty, or selecting a group who were less capable).

Step Rate was calculated by total steps taken divided by the total minutes in light, moderate, and vigorous activities, based on the notion that this would provide an independent indicator of physical activity intensity (how briskly one is walking). Sedentary Time was the total minutes spent sedentary.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-11/bumc-slp112415.php

Reference: 

[4045] Hayes, S. M., Alosco M. L., Hayes J. P., Cadden M., Peterson K. M., Allsup K., et al.
(2015).  Physical Activity Is Positively Associated with Episodic Memory in Aging.
Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society. 21(Special Issue 10), 780 - 790.

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Individuals vary in how they remember events

  • Individuals vary in how vividly they remember the past. A new study links this to differences in brain activity which may reflect a stable trait.
  • The finding also has implications for assessments of age-related cognitive decline.

A study involving 66 healthy young adults (average age 24) has revealed that different individuals have distinct brain connectivity patterns that are associated with different ways of experiencing and remembering the past.

The participants completed an online questionnaire on how well they remember autobiographical events and facts, then had their brains scanned. Brain scans found that those with richly-detailed autobiographical memories had higher mediotemporal lobe connectivity to regions at the back of the brain involved in visual perception, whereas those tending to recall the past in a factual manner showed higher mediotemporal lobe connectivity to prefrontal regions involved in organization and reasoning.

The finding supports the idea that those with superior autobiographical memory have a greater ability or tendency to reinstate rich images and perceptual details, and that this appears to be a stable personality trait.

The finding also raises interesting questions about age-related cognitive decline. Many people first recognize cognitive decline in their increasing difficulty retrieving the details of events. But this may be something that is far more obvious and significant to people who are used to retrieving richly-detailed memories. Those who rely on a factual approach may be less susceptible.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-12/bcfg-wiy121015.php

Full text available at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010945215003834

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Short online ‘pep talks’ can boost students

A large study shows how a 45-minute online intervention can improve struggling high school students' attitude to schoolwork, and thus their academic performance.

There's been a lot of talk in recent years about the importance of mindset in learning, with those who have a “growth mindset” (ie believe that intelligence can be developed) being more academically successful than those who believe that intelligence is a fixed attribute. A new study shows that a 45-minute online intervention can help struggling high school students.

The study involved 1,594 students in 13 U.S. high schools. They were randomly allocated to one of three intervention groups or the control group. The intervention groups either experienced an online program designed to develop a growth mindset, or an online program designed to foster a sense of purpose, or both programs (2 weeks apart). All interventions were expected to improve academic performance, especially in struggling students.

The interventions had no significant benefits for students who were doing okay, but were of significant benefit for those who had an initial GPA of 2 or less, or had failed at least one core subject (this group contained 519 students; a third of the total participants). For this group, each of the interventions was of similar benefit; interestingly, the combined intervention was less beneficial than either single intervention. It's plausibly suggested that this might be because the different messages weren't integrated, and students may have had some trouble in taking on board two separate messages.

Overall, for this group of students, semester grade point averages improved in core academic courses and the rate at which students performed satisfactorily in core courses increased by 6.4%.

GPA average in core subjects (math, English, science, social studies) was calculated at the end of the semester before the interventions, and at the end of the semester after the interventions. Brief questions before and after the interventions assessed the students' beliefs about intelligence, and their sense of meaningfulness about schoolwork.

GPA before intervention was positively associated with a growth mindset and a sense of purpose, explaining why the interventions had no effect on better students. Only the growth mindset intervention led to a more malleable view of intelligence; only the sense-of-purpose intervention led to a change in perception in the value of mundane academic tasks. Note that the combined intervention showed no such effects, suggesting that it had confused rather than enlightened!

In the growth mindset intervention, students read an article describing the brain’s ability to grow and reorganize itself as a consequence of hard work and good strategies. The message that difficulties don't indicate limited ability but rather provide learning opportunities, was reinforced in two writing exercises. The control group read similar materials, but with a focus on functional localization in the brain rather than its malleability.

In the sense-of-purpose interventions, students were asked to write about how they wished the world could be a better place. They read about the reasons why some students worked hard, such as “to make their families proud”; “to be a good example”; “to make a positive impact on the world”. They were then asked to think about their own goals and how school could help them achieve those objectives. The control group completed one of two modules that didn't differ in impact. In one, students described how their lives were different in high school compared to before. The other was much more similar to the intervention, except that the emphasis was on economic self-interest rather than social contribution.

The findings are interesting in showing that you can help poor learners with a simple intervention, but perhaps even more, for their indication that such interventions are best done in a more holistic and contextual way. A more integrated message would hopefully have been more effective, and surely ongoing reinforcement in the classroom would make an even bigger difference.

http://www.futurity.org/high-school-growth-mindset-910082/

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Birth order has no meaningful effect on personality or IQ

Because this is such a persistent myth, I thought I should briefly report on this massive study that should hopefully put an end to this myth once and for all (I wish! Myths are not so easily squashed.)

This study used data from 377,000 U.S. high school students, and, agreeing with a previous large study, found that first-borns have a one IQ point advantage over later-born siblings, but while statistically significant, this is a difference of no practical significance.

The analysis also found that first-borns tended to be more extroverted, agreeable and conscientious, and had less anxiety than later-borns, — but those differences were “infinitesimally small”, amounting to a correlation of 0.02 (the correlation between birth order and intelligence was .04).

The study controlled for potentially confounding factors, such as a family's economic status, number of children and the relative age of the siblings at the time of the analysis.

A separate analysis of children with exactly two siblings and living with two parents, enabled the finding that there are indeed specific differences between the oldest and a second child, and between second and third children. But the magnitude of the differences was again “minuscule”.

Perhaps it's not fair to say the myth is trounced. Rather, we can say that, yeah, sure, birth order makes a difference — but the difference is so small as not to be meaningful on an individual level.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-07/uoia-msb071615.php

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Individual differences

Older news items (pre-2010) brought over from the old website

Learning styles challenged

A review of the research on learning styles finds that although numerous studies have claimed to show the existence of different kinds of learners, nearly all of the studies fail to satisfy key criteria for scientific validity — in particular, by randomly assigning learners classified by their “style” to one of several different learning methods (implicit in the idea of learning styles is the concept that individuals differ in regard to what mode of instruction or study is most effective for them). Of the few that did, some provided evidence flatly contradictory to the meshing hypothesis (the most common hypothesis, postulating that instruction is best provided in a format that matches the preferences of the learner) and the few findings in line with the idea did not assess popular learning-style schemes (71 different models of learning styles have been proposed over the years). The reviewers do no contest that people have preferences in how information is presented to them, or that people differ in the degree to which they use different processing modes, or that there might be untested learning styles that have significant effects. However, they argue that the lack of evidence for the postulated interaction effect is good reason not to spend limited education resources on this area that would better be devoted to adopting other educational practices that have a strong evidence base.

Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & Bjork, R. (2009). Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 9(3), 105-119.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-12/afps-lsd121609.php

Insight into the processes of 'positive' and 'negative' learners

An intriguing study of the electrical signals emanating from the brain has revealed two types of learners. A brainwave event called an "event-related potential" (ERP) is important in learning; a particular type of ERP called "error-related negativity" (ERN), is associated with activity in the anterior cingulate cortex. This region is activated during demanding cognitive tasks, and ERNs are typically more negative after participants make incorrect responses compared to correct choices. Unexpectedly, studies of this ERN found a difference between "positive" learners, who perform better at choosing the correct response than avoiding the wrong one, and "negative" learners, who learn better to avoid incorrect responses. The negative learners showed larger ERNs, suggesting that "these individuals are more affected by, and therefore learn more from, their errors.” Positive learners had larger ERNs when faced with high-conflict win/win decisions among two good options than during lose/lose decisions among two bad options, whereas negative learners showed the opposite pattern.

Frank, M.J., Woroch, B.S. & Curran, T. 2005. Error-Related Negativity Predicts Reinforcement Learning and Conflict Biases. Neuron, 47, 495-501.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-08/cp-iit081205.php

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Attention Differences

Attention differences between individuals and ages

Older news items (pre-2010) brought over from the old website

When less attention improves behavior

An intriguing finding from a new study with confabulating patients has found that, unlike with normal individuals, or indeed other patients with damaged prefrontal lobes who don’t confabulate, memory accuracy improves when attention is reduced. It appears that lack of attention during memory retrieval is not the reason for confabulation; instead the problem might lie in over-processing irrelevant information. Training such patients to double-check the accuracy of their memories may not therefore be useful; instead they should be trained not to give too much attention to events.

[595] Ciaramelli, E., Ghetti S., & Borsotti M.
(2009).  Divided attention during retrieval suppresses false recognition in confabulation.
Cortex. 45(2), 141 - 153.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-01/e-wla012109.php

Children's under-achievement could be down to poor working memory

A survey of over three thousand children has found that 10% of school children across all age ranges suffer from poor working memory seriously affecting their learning. However, poor working memory is rarely identified by teachers, who often describe children with this problem as inattentive or as having lower levels of intelligence. The researchers have developed a new tool, a combination of a checklist and computer programme called the Working Memory Rating Scale, that enables teachers to identify and assess children's memory capacity in the classroom from as early as four years old. The tool has already been piloted successfully in 35 schools across the UK, and is now widely available. It has been translated into ten foreign languages.
http://www.physorg.com/news123404466.html 
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-02/du-cuc022608.php

Changes in brain, not age, determine one's ability to focus on task

It’s been established that one of the reasons why older adults may do less well on cognitive tasks is because they have greater difficulty in ignoring distractions, which impairs their concentration. But not all older people are afflicted by this. Some are as focused as young adults. An imaging study has now revealed a difference between the brains of those people who are good at focusing, and those who are poor. Those who have difficulty screening out distractions have less white matter in the frontal lobes. They activated neurons in the left frontal lobe as well as the right. Young people and high-functioning older adults tended to use only the right frontal lobe.

[1117] Colcombe, S. J., Kramer A. F., Erickson K. I., & Scalf P.
(2005).  The implications of cortical recruitment and brain morphology for individual differences in inhibitory function in aging humans.
Psychology and Aging. 20(3), 363 - 375.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-10/uoia-cib102605.php

Memory loss in older adults due to distractions, not inability to focus

We know that older adults often have short-term memory problems, and this has been linked to problems with attention. An imaging study now provides evidence that these short-term memory problems are associated with an inability to filter out surrounding distractions, rather than problems with focusing attention. It’s been suggested that an inability to ignore distracting information may indeed be at the heart of many of the cognitive problems that accompany aging. It should be noted that this is not an inevitable effect of age — in the study, 6 of the 16 older adults involved had no problems with short-term memory or attention.

[383] Gazzaley, A., Cooney J. W., Rissman J., & D'Esposito M.
(2005).  Top-down suppression deficit underlies working memory impairment in normal aging.
Nat Neurosci. 8(10), 1298 - 1300.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-09/uoc--mli090805.php

Insight into the processes of 'positive' and 'negative' learners

An intriguing study of the electrical signals emanating from the brain has revealed two types of learners. A brainwave event called an "event-related potential" (ERP) is important in learning; a particular type of ERP called "error-related negativity" (ERN), is associated with activity in the anterior cingulate cortex. This region is activated during demanding cognitive tasks, and ERNs are typically more negative after participants make incorrect responses compared to correct choices. Unexpectedly, studies of this ERN found a difference between "positive" learners, who perform better at choosing the correct response than avoiding the wrong one, and "negative" learners, who learn better to avoid incorrect responses. The negative learners showed larger ERNs, suggesting that "these individuals are more affected by, and therefore learn more from, their errors.” Positive learners had larger ERNs when faced with high-conflict win/win decisions among two good options than during lose/lose decisions among two bad options, whereas negative learners showed the opposite pattern.

[818] Frank, M. J., Woroch B. S., & Curran T.
(2005).  Error-Related Negativity Predicts Reinforcement Learning and Conflict Biases.
Neuron. 47(4), 495 - 501.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-08/cp-iit081205.php

Teen's ability to multi-task develops late in adolescence

A study involving adolescents between 9 and 20 years old has found that the ability to multi-task continues to develop through adolescence. The ability to use recall-guided action to remember single pieces of spatial information (such as looking at the location of a dot on a computer screen, then, after a delay, indicating where the dot had been) developed until ages 11 to 12, while the ability to remember multiple units of information in the correct sequence developed until ages 13 to 15. Tasks in which participants had to search for hidden items in a manner requiring a high level of multi-tasking and strategic thinking continued to develop until ages 16 to 17. "These findings have important implications for parents and teachers who might expect too much in the way of strategic or self-organized thinking, especially from older teenagers."

[547] Luciana, M., Conklin H. M., Hooper C. J., & Yarger R. S.
(2005).  The Development of Nonverbal Working Memory and Executive Control Processes in Adolescents.
Child Development. 76(3), 697 - 712.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-05/sfri-tat051205.php

Development of working memory with age

An imaging study of 20 healthy 8- to 30-year-olds has shed new light on the development of working memory. The study found that pre-adolescent children relied most heavily on the prefrontal and parietal regions of the brain during the working memory task; adolescents used those regions plus the anterior cingulate; and in adults, a third area of the brain, the medial temporal lobe, was brought in to support the functions of the other areas. Adults performed best. The results support the view that a person's ability to have voluntary control over behavior improves with age because with development, additional brain processes are used.

The findings were presented at the 2004 Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-10/uopm-dow102104.php

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Individual differences in Alzheimer's molecular structure

The first detailed characterization of the molecular structures of amyloid-beta fibrils that develop in the brains of those with Alzheimer's disease suggests that different molecular structures of amyloid-beta fibrils may distinguish the brains of Alzheimer's patients with different clinical histories and degrees of brain damage.

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