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Biomedical subjects

E M Zelinski

Publications and source records attributed to E M Zelinski.

7 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1990

The Memory Functioning Questionnaire for assessment of memory complaints in adulthood and old age.

The results of psychometric analyses of the Metamemory Questionnaire (MQ; Zelinski, Gilewski, & Thompson, 1980), developed to evaluate perception of everyday memory functioning, are presented for a sample of 343 men and 435 women aged 16 to 89. Exploratory factor analysis yielded 4 correlated factors--General Frequency of Forgetting, Seriousness of Forgetting, Retrospective Functioning, and Mnemonics Usage--which accounted for 36.7% of the variance in responses to the MQ. Factor structure was invariant across age groups (16-54 vs. 55-89 years), 2 independent samples, and over 3 years. Because some of the original MQ scales did not load on the factors, only 64 of the original 92 items were retained for inclusion in the Memory Functioning Questionnaire (MFQ). Internal consistency of MFQ scores is high. The MFQ is therefore reliable for evaluating memory self-appraisals.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1990

Anaphor comprehension in younger and older adults.

This research was aimed at evaluating adult age differences in language comprehension, which has been hypothesized to decline in normal older adults. Three experiments were conducted to investigate the comprehension rate of pairs of related sentences. In Experiment 1, the related material consisted of either terms repeated from the first sentence or terms associatively related to the antecedent. In Experiment 2, the generality of the antecedent term in the sentence pairs varied, as did its typicality. In both experiments, young-old (age 55-69) and old-old (age 70-87) adults read the target sentences in the pairs more slowly than did young adults (age 20-36); age, however, did not interact with the condition. Experiment 3 repeated the conditions of Experiment 2, but, since only one sentence at a time was visible during a trial, the participants had to remember the first sentence while reading the target sentence. Young participants (aged 20-35) showed the same treatment effects as in Experiment 2, but the old (aged 55-86) showed deficits in online comprehension. The results of the three experiments suggest that the speed of comprehension processes required to match related terms in sentence pairs are not impaired with age as long as they do not have to be remembered.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Young and older adults' use of context in spatial memory.

We evaluated the hypothesis that older adults remember spatial information less well than younger adults because they use contextual information less effectively. Young and older adults studied schematic town maps on which structures were presented either simultaneously or successively and on which a network of streets was either present or absent. However, age did not interact with either contextual variable. Thus, we conclude that age differences in spatial memory do not arise from differences in the use of context.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Effects of thematic information on script memory in young and old adults.

In two experiments, we evaluated the hypothesis that older adults' poorer memory for prose is due to an inability to integrate thematic information with text material. Subjects read scripts either preceded by a thematic background or no theme. In Experiment 1, memory was tested either immediately or after 24 hr delay. Younger adults (aged 20-36) recalled more and were more accurate in recognition than were older adults (aged 57-87). Both younger and older subjects were affected by thematic information in delayed, but not in immediate recall. In Experiment 2, we presented a shorter narrative and memory was tested only after 24 hr. Younger subjects recalled more than older ones, but their recognition scores did not differ from those of the older adults. As in Experiment 1, there was no interaction of age with thematic information. The results of these studies suggest that older adults are as likely to integrate thematic information in remembering as younger ones.

Adult↗
PubMed1978

Orienting task effects on EDR and free recall in three age groups.

The present investigation was designed to examine the effects of orienting task-controlled processing on electrodermal response and free recall at two delay intervals for 94 young, 49 young-old (age 55 to 70), and 61 old-old (age 71 to 85) individuals. Subjects were presented with a list of 25 words and performed one of the following tasks: semantic, nonsemantic, or passive listening, presented in an incidental memory paradigm, or intentional memorization. Recall was obtained 2 min or 48 hours after list presentation. At the 2-min delay, the pattern of recall across tasks for the young-old and old-old subjects was similar to that of college students. Overall, the old-old recalled fewer words than the young and young-old, while the young-old recalled as many words as the young. After 48 hours, the task-related recall pattern was observed only in the young group. The skin conductance data indicated that task effects were similar across the three age groups and that response magnitude was lower in the old-old than the two younger groups. No differences in skin conductance were found between the young and young-old. Age differences in memory processing suggest that difficulties in delayed retrieval of semantically encoded words may increase during late adult years. Differences in electrodermal responses in the old-old compared to the young and young-old suggest that the range of autonomic responsivitiy to task demands may become restricted in advanced age.

Aged↗