Modeling daily fluctuations in everyday cognition and health behaviors at general and person-specific levels: a GIMME analysis

The non-ergodic nature of cognitive processes and the new person-specific paradigm suggest that psychological research should be conducted at both group and intra-individual levels. In this study, we applied the group iterative multiple model estimation (GIMME) approach to investigate the contemporaneous and lagged relationship between individuals’ everyday cognition (i.e., brief n-back test) and contextual health behavior states (i.e., mental sharpness, social engagement, physical activity, mental engagement, fatigue, and emotional state) measured using ecological momentary assessment (EMA). We focused on a community-dwelling middle-aged and older adult population. Results identified both group and individual patterns regarding the association between EMA captured everyday cognition and health variables.