engleski

In age we trust: The effect of implicit age bias on cognitive training efficacy

Evaluations of cognitive training programs for the elderly often find benefits of the program, in terms of near- or far-transfer effects, on a range of cognitive measures (i.e. attention, short-term and working memory, readingcomprehension). These gains can, often to a lesser extent, be maintained sometime after the training (follow-ups at 6 months). A few studies have investigated the potential transfer of cognitive training to non-cognitive measures, dispositional variables or everyday functioning, such as metamemory, optimism, subjective well-being, and their results are less clear.After-training measurements show greaterindividual differences in these measures, as well as training-related gains, but these gains are not maintained. Importance of these measures lies in their positive relation to the perceived quality of life – the ultimate goal of every intervention. It is, therefore, of high interest to understand this post-training „drop“ in non-cognitive measures and thus revise current training procedures. We believe the lack of maintenance effect for non-cognitive measures, and consequently drop in subjective well-being and the perceived quality of life might lie in the implicit age bias. Namely, implicit age bias does not appear to vary as a function of age – hence, older participantstend to have negative implicit attitudes towards the elderly. This stands in contrast to explicit attitude toward the elderly that becomes more positive as the age increases. In this study we aimed at investigating the role of implicit age bias in elderly as a potential cognitive bias leading to low maintenance of training-related gains in non-cognitive variables. A sample of 50 community-dwelling older adults participated in the study, divided in treatment and active control group. Treatment group underwent a 6-week multifactorial training, using personalized (autobiographic) material. Participants were tested (pretest, posttest and follow-up at 6 months) on a range of cognitive and non-cognitive measures, explicit and implicit age attitude. Preliminary results show significant relation of self-assessed everyday functioning and cognitive abilities with explicit and implicit attitudes on aging. Furthermore, implicit age bias seems to be a significant mechanism serving individual differences in training-related gains on non-cognitive, but also cognitive measures.

cognitive training; age bias; transfer effects

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