Cognitive Changes in Adulthood and Old Age.

Cognitive Changes in Early Adulthood

Young adulthood is a time when most of us finish school, find a career we enjoy, and create a family of
our own. Physically, it is a time where we are our healthiest and will reach our peak performance.
Cognitively, it is a time to grow up and make life decisions.

According to Erik Erikson’s eight stages of development, this is a time of intimacy vs. isolation. One
either gets involved in an intimate relationship or isolates oneself. According to the literature, many
areas of development are paramount during early adulthood. The cognitive stages during the early
adulthood can be discussed as a period of realistic and pragmatic thinking; reflective and relativistic
thinking. According to Piaget, he thought that young adults were quantitatively advanced in their
thinking (they have more knowledge), however, they are qualitatively similar. He also believed that
adults increase their knowledge in a specific area.

Between the ages of 35-60, we find vast changes in many areas of our lives. The most obvious changes
related to our lifestyle include: physical development and health, career and finances, marriage, and
leisure activities. For many, midlife is a time when they start to think about “how much time they have
left”. Individuals begin to reexamine their lives, their relationships, their work, and even to question the
meaning of it all. This process has been referred to as a mid-life crisis. Clearly, middle adulthood is a time
change and development.

The cognitive stages during the early adulthood can be discussed as a period of realistic and pragmatic
thinking; reflective and relativistic thinking. According to Piaget, he thought that young adults were
quantitatively advanced in their thinking (they have more knowledge), however, they are qualitatively
similar. He also believed that adults increase their knowledge in a specific area.

Realistic and Pragmatic Thinking

Realistic thinking means looking at all aspects of a situation (the positive, the negative, and the neutral)
before making conclusions. In other words, realistic thinking means looking at yourself, others, and the
world in a balanced and fair way. Some experts argue that the idealism of Piaget’s formal operational
stage declines in young adulthood, replaced by more realistic, pragmatic thinking. Schaie argues that
adults use information differently than adolescents. According to K.Warner Schaie, adults progress
beyond adolescents only in their use of intellect. We typically switch from actually acquiring knowledge
to applying that knowledge in our everyday lives. To support his theory of development, he included the
following two stages to describe the cognitive changes in adults:

 Achieving Stage Involves applying ones intelligence to situations that have profound
consequences on achieving long term goals, such as those involving careers. This stage of
development includes mastering the cognitive skills needed to monitor one’s own behaviour.
Young adults in this stage will also acquire a considerable amount of independence.

 Responsibility Stage
This stage of development begins in early adulthood and extends into middle adulthood. This is
the time when a family is established and attention is given to the needs of a spouse and
children. Young adults incur social responsibilities, deal with starting a career, and must take on
 some level of responsibility for others at work and in the community. According to Labouvie-
Vief, there are many changes that take place in the thinking of young adults, including a new
integration of thought. Young adults rely less on logical analysis when solving problems.
Idealised logic is replaced with commitment, and youth focus their energy on finding their niche
in the work place and society. During young adulthood, logical skills don’t decline because
cognitive abilities are strong.

Reflective and Relativistic Thinking William Perry said that adolescents often engage in dualistic,
absolute thinking, whereas adults are more likely to engage in reflective, relativistic thinking. The term
dualistic thinking is used to describe an adolescents view of the world. Everything is seen in the polar
terms or opposites. Examples for this are right/wrong or good/bad.

As youth mature, dualistic thinking is replaced by multiple thinking. They gradually become aware of the
diversity of opinion in other people and realise that authority may not have all the answers. Young
adults begin to create their own style of thinking, and believe that others are entitled to the opinion
they hold and that one opinion is good as anyone’s else’s. This leads to the next form of thinking,
relative subordinate thinking. Here, personal opinions begin to be challenged by others, and a logical
evaluation of knowledge is actively pursued. This leads to the final form of thinking, which is full
relativism. In this stage of thinking, young adults completely understand that truth is relative, and
knowledge is constructed and not given, contextual and not absolute.

Post formal thought is qualitatively different than Piaget’s formal operational thought. It involves
understanding that the correct answer to a problem requires reflective thinking, may vary from one
situation to another, and that the search for truth is often an ongoing, never-ending process. Along with
this is the belief that solutions to problems need to be realistic and that emotion and subjective factors
can influence thinking.

Cognitive changes in Middle Adulthood

In middle adulthood, an important challenge is to develop a genuine concern for the welfare of future
generations and to contribute to the world through family and work. This period is aged between 40-60
years of life. From the period of twenties and thirties, the individual arrives at middle age in the forties
and fifties.

Middle age is characterised by competence, maturity, responsibility and stability. This is the time when
one wants to enjoy the success of job, satisfaction derived from the family and social life. People look
forward to the success of their children. Attention gets more focused on health, the fate of children,
ageing parents, the use of leisure time and plans of old age.

Middle adulthood is the period in which an individual changes in their cognitive functioning as
concerned to their intelligence: crystallized and fluid; information processing and memory; expertise;
career, work and leisure; religion, health and coping; and meaning in life.

Intelligence

Cognitive development is multidirectional. It gains in some area and losses in others. Cross sectional
measures of intelligence show decreases with age. There may be cohort effect of better or more
schooling. Longitudinal measures show increase, at least until the age of 50s. It may be inflated due to
practice effects and attrition. Cognitive abilities are more likely to increase than decrease, with
exception of arithmetic skills, which begin to shift slightly downwards by age 40. Fluid intelligence refers
to our ability to see relationships, use abstract reasoning, and analyse information. Crystallized
intelligence refers to our ability to use knowledge, experience, vocabulary, and verbal memory (Horn &
Hofer, 1992). Fluid intelligence declines with age, but crystallized intelligence continues to grow as we
learn more during middle age.

 Fluid Intelligence

Fluid intelligence is the flexible reasoning and is made up of the basic mental abilities such as inductive
reasoning, abstract thinking and speed of thinking required for understanding any subject. It is fast and
abstract reasoning, in adults, there is a decline with age.

It includes nonverbal abilities and nonverbal puzzle solving, novel logic problems; allows best works at
age 20s and 30s by mathematicians, scientists and poets. peaks during the early adulthood and then
declines ability to apply mental powers to new problems, perceiving relationships, forming concepts and
drawing inferences. It declines probably due to changes in brain. These differences might be due to
cohort effects related to educational differences rather than to age.

 Crystallized Intelligence
Crystallized intelligence is the verbal reasoning that holds across the lifespan which reflects
accumulated knowledge and vocabulary. It allows best works at age of 40s, 50s, and older by
historians, philosophers, prose writers. It refers to the accumulation of facts, information and
knowledge that comes with education and experience within a particular culture. Crystallized
intelligence improves through middle age and on. The ability to remember and use information
acquired over a lifetime is increased, and also depends on education and culture of the
individual.

An individual is able to use stored information’s and process automatically in their daily lives.
Many psychologists believe that fluid intelligence was primarily genetic and that crystallized
intelligence was primarily learned. This nature-nurture distinction is probably invalid, in part
because the acquisition of crystallized intelligence is affected by the quality of fluid intelligence.

Fluid intelligence declines during adulthood, although this decline is temporarily masked by an increase
in crystallized intelligence.

IQ tests may lack ecological validity as the reaction time slows down with age and results may be due to
physical changes and not cognitive changes.

Robert Sternberg proposed that intelligence is composed of three distinct parts:

 Analytic / Academic

It consists of mental processes that foster efficient learning, remembering and thinking. Multiple choice
tests, with one and only one right answer reward analytic intelligence. They tend to have an extensive,
highly organised knowledge of a particular domain and increase in work satisfaction. There is a greater
commitment towards the job.
They have greatest physical and psychological well-being. The current middle-aged worker faces more
challenges, and increased career challenges lead to career changes. The midlife career changes can be
self-motivated or imposed by others.

 Creative

Creativity is another important adult skill related to intelligence. Like intelligence, though, it is hard to
agree what it is. We know that some kinds of creativity, like writing, peaks during middle adulthood.
Creativity and practical intelligence often combine to create people we call experts in their fields,
whether repairing cars, farming, writing, or designing a spacecraft. It involves the capacity to be flexible
and innovative when dealing with new situations. Expertise increases in the middle adulthood years.
They tend to use the accumulated experience of their life situations to solve problems. There is more
creativity and flexibility in their domain than novices.

They prefer to make their own decisions and plans. They prefer their own judgment to that of others
and don’t tend to back down in the face of criticism or disagreement. They are most resourceful when
faced with unique circumstances or problems. They show an imaginative use of many different words.
They show more flexibility in their approach to problems, are eager to try new avenues, and are not
bound to rules or accepted ideas of the way things work. They show originality and do not often come
up with off the shelf solutions.

 Practical

It enables the person to adapt his/her abilities to contextual demands. They tend to have a pleasant
time after work. They have more time and money to pursue activities and interests. There is decreased
rate of heart disease and death due to vacations and leisure. During this time they are preparing
themselves for retirement.

Information Processing and Memory During the middle adulthood the speed of information processing,
reaction time, and memory declines. The use of effective memory strategies can decrease the decline.

Religion, Health, Coping and Meaning in Life

Religion and spirituality is an important dimension of life during this stage. A significant increase in
religiosity and spirituality is seen during middle age. There is an individual difference in religious interest,
as the females show a stronger interest in religion than males do. Positive association of religious
participation and longevity is noticed. Religion promotes physical and psychological health and positive
functions of religious coping.

According to Victor Frankl, the examining of the finiteness of our existence leads to exploration of
meaning in life. Many middle-aged individuals increasingly examine life’s meaning.

Cognitive Changes in Old Age

Late adulthood (old age) is generally considered to begin at about age 65.

Erik Erikson suggests that at this time it is important to find meaning and satisfaction in life rather than
to become bitter and disillusioned, that is, to resolve the conflict of integrity vs. despair. Despite the
problems associated with longevity, studies of people in their 70s have shown that growing old is not
necessarily synonymous with substantial mental or physical deterioration. Many older people are happy
and engaged in a variety of activities. Gerontology, an interdisciplinary field that studies the process of
ageing and the ageing population, involves psychology, biology, sociology, and other fields.

Late Adulthood is the period in an individual’s life beginning at ages sixty or seventy and ending at
death. This life period, like any other, is one of continuing change and adjustment both in the physical
and the psychosocial realms.

Theories of successful ageing include the following:

The disengagement theory states that as people age, their withdrawal from society is normal and
desirable as it relieves them of responsibilities and roles that have become difficult. This process also
opens up opportunities for younger people; society benefits as more-energetic young people fill the
vacated positions.

The activity theory contends that activity is necessary to maintain a “life of quality,”that is, that one
must “use it or lose it” no matter what one’s age and that people who remain active in all respects—
physically, mentally, and socially—adjust better to the ageing process. Proponents of this theory believe
that activities of earlier years should be maintained as long as possible.

Ageism may be defined as the prejudice or discrimination that occurs on the basis of age. Although it
can be used against people of all ages, older people are most frequently its target and it may often result
in forced retirement. Stereotyping of the elderly is also an aspect of ageism, as seen in such a statement
as “He drives like a little old lady.”

Cognitive development is a general loss cognitively as people move closer to the end of life. The study of
cognitive changes in the older population is complex. Response speeds (neural and motor) have been
reported to decline; some researchers believe that age-related decrease in working memory is the
crucial factor underlying poorer performance by the elderly on cognitive tasks. Selective optimisation
with compensation is one means of making best use of their cognitive skills. They narrow their goals,
select personally valued activities so as to optimise or maximise returns from their energy.

They find means to compensate for losses. Factors related to Cognitive change – mentally active people
are likely to maintain their cognitive abilities into advanced old age. Retirement can bring about changes
in cognitive abilities depending on how those years are used. Terminal decline is a steady, marked
decrease in cognitive functioning prior to death.

Memory

The older adults are taking in information more slowly, and they use strategies less, can’t inhibit
irrelevant information and retrieve important information from long-term memory. So memory failure
increases. Slower processing speed means there will be less retained from current activities. They also
forget context, which helps us recall information. Recognition memory does not decline as much as free
recall.

 Deliberate vs. automatic memory Implicit memory is memory without conscious awareness.
This memory is more intact than deliberate memory, trying to recall information.
 Associative memory
Associative memory deficit is a problem creating and retrieving links between pieces of
information. This is more common for elders.
  Remote memory is very long-term recall. It is not any clearer than recent recall for seniors,
even though the myth is that seniors remember the past better than recent events.
 Autobiographical memory is memory for your own personally experienced events. Seniors best
recall their adolescent and early adulthood experiences better than later life experiences. There
was a lot of novelty in those times, as well as life choices being made- spouses, jobs,
educational choices. These experiences were more emotionally charged, so they are
remembered better. They become part of a person’s life story, and are remembered often.
 Prospective memory is remembering to do planned activities in the future. There is more
forgetfulness and absentmindedness as people age. They tend to do better on event-based
memory tasks than time-based tasks.

Language processing

The two aspects of language processing diminish in older age: finding the right words and planning what
to say and how to say it. Their speech will have more pronouns, unclear references, they will speak more
slowly, pause more often, and have trouble finding the right words. There will be more hesitations, false
starts, sentence fragments, word repetitions as they age. They tend to simplify their grammatical
structures, so they can better retrieve the words they want.

Problem solving

The problem solving declines in late adulthood so married people tend to collaborate more in problem-
solving. They will be better at solving problems they think are under their control. They will make more
rapid decisions in areas of health, as that is an area they feel they have learned a lot about.

Wisdom includes practical knowledge, ability to reflect on and apply that knowledge, emotional
maturity, listening skills, and creativity in a way that helps others. This does increase with age. It occurs
as people deal with more difficulties in life and find various means to adapt to change.

Those with wisdom tend to have better education and are physically healthier. It requires insight into
the human condition and often follows that people with this ability are found in high positions in
business and politics and religion.

 Knowledge about fundamental concerns of life: human nature, social relationships, emotions.
 Effective strategies for applying that knowledge to making life decisions, handling conflict, giving
advice.
 A view of people that considers multiple demands of their life contexts.
 Concern with ultimate human values, the common good, respect for individual differences in
values.
 Awareness and management of the uncertainties of life – many problems have no perfect
solution.

Intellectual changes in late adulthood do not always result in reduction of ability. While fluid
intelligence (the ability to see and to use patterns and relationships to solve problems) does decline in
later years, crystallized intelligence (the ability to use accumulated information to solve problems and
make decisions) has been shown to rise slightly over the entire life span. K. Warner Schaie and Sherry
Willis

that a decline in cognitive performance could be reversed in 40% to 60% of elderly people who were
given remedial training.

Retirement

Retirement at age 65 is the conventional choice for many people, although some work until much later.
People have been found to be happier in retirement if they are not forced to retire before they are
ready and if they have enough income to maintain an adequate living standard. Chronic health problems
such as arthritis, rheumatism, and hypertension increasingly interfere with the quality of life of most
individuals as they age.

Widowhood

Women tend to marry men older than they are and, on average, live 5 to 7 years longer than men. One
study found ten times as many widows as widowers. Widowhood is particularly stressful if the death of
the spouse occurs early in life; close support of friends, particularly other widows, can be very helpful.

Death and dying

Death and dying has been studied extensively by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, who suggested that terminally ill
patients display the following five basic reactions.

 Denial, an attempt to deny the reality and to isolate oneself from the event, is frequently the
first reaction.

 Anger frequently follows, as the person envies the living and asks, “Why should I be the one to
die?”

 Bargaining may occur; the person pleads to God or others for more time.

 As the end nears, recognition that death is inevitable and that separation from family will occur
leads to feelings of exhaustion, futility, and deep depression.

 Acceptance often follows if death is not sudden, and the person finds peace with the inevitable.

People who are dying are sometimes placed in a hospice, a hospital for the terminally ill that attempts
to maintain a good quality of life for the patient and the family during the final days. In a predictable
pattern after a loved one’s death, initial shock is followed by grief, followed by apathy and depression,
which may continue for weeks.

Support groups and counseling can help in successfully working through this process.

Cognitive Interventions

Lifelong learning
 Types of programs include Elderhostel, which encourages older adults to live on college
campuses and take courses from experts, as well as travel the world. Many universities offer
classes at low or no cost for seniors.
 Benefits of continuing education include learning new information, understanding new ideas,
making new friends, and developing a broader perspective on the world. This may serve to
shake up their stereotypes and value diversity in a new way.