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In nonpathological elders, cognitive decline is more evident by middle age and depends on different factors, such as speed of processing, nature of the task (i.e., storing versus processing), and type of stimuli (i.e., verbal versus visual and spatial) to be recalled. The present study aimed to investigate the impact of age and environmental factors (i.e., retirement home versus one's own home) on visuo-spatial working memory functions of healthy elderly (73 to 81 years old) and very old participants (83 to 90 years old). Results showed that visuo-spatial working memory processes in the institutionalized sample were comparable with those in free-living participants. A differential age effect was more evident for mnestic tasks involving the manipulation of stimuli. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growing evidence indicates that Theory of Mind (ToM) declines in normal aging. However, the majority of this research has used classic and static verbal tasks that present scenarios, which are very different from real life. The present study was designed to fill this gap by administering the Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition (MASC) to young and older participants. It allows one to analyze not only the accuracy, but also the typology of error in mental states attribution distinguishing between iper-ToM (over-mentalization), ipo-ToM (insufficient mentalization), and no-ToM (lack of mentalization). We recruited 30 young (20-29 years), 39 young-old (65-74 years), and 31 old-old (75-86 years) participants. Along with the MASC, we administered a classic ToM task, the Strange Stories, and several measures of cognitive functioning. Results showed that older adults were less accurate in mental state attribution than young adults in the MASC, but not in the Strange Stories. In addition, compared to young adults, older adults committed more errors of both ipo- and no-ToM, while young adults committed more often iper-ToM errors. Additionally, older adults, but not young adults, did not show a difference between iper-ToM and ipo-ToM errors, which were equally frequent in this age group. Globally, results indicated that older adults' failure in classic ToM tasks may be due to both ipo- and iper-ToM and provide needed evidence for the MASC as a suitable measure of ToM in aging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Older adults perform worse than younger adults when applying decision rules to choose between options that vary along multiple attributes. Although previous studies have shown that general fluid cognitive abilities contribute to the accurate application of decision rules, relatively little is known about which specific cognitive abilities play the most important role. We examined the independent roles of working memory, verbal fluency, semantic knowledge, and components of executive functioning. We found that age-related decline in applying decision rules was statistically mediated by age-related decline in working memory and verbal fluency. Our results have implications for theories of aging and decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]