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Biomedical subjects

M Perlmutter

Publications and source records attributed to M Perlmutter.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1997

Adult age-group differences in recall for the literal and interpretive meanings of narrative text.

This study examined age differences in recall for the literal and interpretive meanings of narrative text. Following presentation of one of two stories rich in both literal and interpretive content, younger (mean age = 19.2 years) and older (mean age = 72.2 years) adults were asked to retell and to interpret the story. Response task order was counterbalanced across participants. When asked to retell a story as close to the original as possible, the younger adults recalled more of the literal propositional content than did the older adults in the retell-first, although not in the interpret-first, condition. In addition, both older and younger adults recalled more of the main ideas (gist) relative to the details. When asked to interpret the same story, more older than younger adults produced deep and synthetic representations of the story's interpretive meanings. In addition, there was a clear preference among the older age group for deep-synthetic responding. Although more younger than older adults produced analytic interpretations, within the younger group there was no clear preference for either an analytic or a deep-synthetic style.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

Future time perspective and life events across adulthood.

Age differences in future time perspective and the relations between future time perspective, locus of control, and past and anticipated future life events were examined in younger (ages 20 to 37) and older (ages 60 to 81) men and women. There were neither age nor gender differences in the time period participants reported thinking of most frequently. Participants reported thinking about the next few months more frequently than about other future time periods, which ranged from the next few days to many years. However, younger participants also reported thinking frequently about more distant time periods, whereas older subjects did not. Anticipation of discontinuous future events, control of impending events, and positive past events accounted for some age differences found in thinking about distant future time periods. No systematic gender differences were found.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

Self-ratings of past, present, and future cognitive performance across adulthood.

Age differences in self-ratings of present and projected past and future cognitive performance were examined across a variety of cognitive domains. Participants (N = 151) in their twenties, forties, sixties, and eighties completed a battery of cognitive tasks and rated their present performance, likely performance five years ago (past), and projected performance five years hence (future) for each task. Performance on fluid/speeded intelligence, memory, and reasoning tasks followed a progression of poorer performance with age. Age differences in self-assessment of projected past and future performance were found, as were age by time interactions. Self-ratings of participants in their twenties tended to reflect projections of continuing improvement from past to present to future, but self-ratings of participants in older age groups tended to reflect perceptions of increasing decline over time. These findings suggest that age differences in self-ratings of cognitive performance may be related to age specific implicit theories of cognitive development.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

Synthesis of 4-[18F]fluoro-L-m-tyrosine: a model analog for the in vivo assessment of central dopaminergic function.

4-[18F]Fluoro-L-m-tyrosine (6), a new analog of L-dopa for probing the presynaptic dopaminergic system by positron emission tomography has been synthesized in good radiochemical yields via the regioselective fluorodemercuration of the 4-mercurio derivatives 4a and 4b with 18F-labeled acetylhypofluorite. The chemical, radiochemical and enantiomeric purities were determined to be greater than 99%. The key step in the synthesis of the precursors 4 was the mercuration of the protected L-m-tyrosine 3. The position of mercuration on the aromatic ring was gleaned from the 13C-NMR spectral data. The non-radiolabeled counterpart of 6 was also synthesized. Structural analyses of all these compounds were carried out by 1H-, 13C-, 19F-NMR and mass spectroscopy.

Fluorine Radioisotopes↗
PubMed1990

Remote, semiautomated production of 6-[18F]fluoro-L-dopa for human studies with PET.

Regioselective radiofluorodemercuration of the 6-mercurio derivative 5 with [18F]acetylhypofluorite afforded, after acidic hydrolysis, 6-[18F]fluoro-L-3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine (6-FD, 1) with a radiochemical yield of 11% (decay corrected and based on the total amount of [18F]F2 recovered from the target). 6-FD was obtained with a chemical and radiochemical purity of greater than 99% and with a level of mercury in the final preparation of less than 20 ppb. Utilization of a remote, semiautomated production system, resulted in the preparation of a sterile, pyrogen-free product suitable for human injection after a synthesis time of 50 min.

Dihydroxyphenylalanine↗
PubMed1990

Relationships between self-reported physical and mental health and intelligence performance across adulthood.

One hundred and twenty-seven adults between 20 and 90 years of age were tested on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale for their digit span memory (forward and backward), fluid intelligence (block design and digit symbol), and crystallized intelligence (vocabulary and information), as well as assessed for self-reported health (Cornell Medical Index, Zung Depression Scale, health habits, and self-ratings of physical and mental health). As expected, across the entire age range there was no correlation between age and digit span memory (r = .03), a strong negative correlation between age and fluid intelligence (r = -.78), and a modest positive correlation between age and crystallized intelligence (r = .27). In addition, older adults reported more physical (r = .36) and mental (r = .32) health problems than did younger adults. Of special interest was the finding that both self-reported physical and mental health accounted for significant variance in intelligence performance, particularly in older adults. Moreover, self-reported health accounted for a considerable portion of observed variance, even when age differences in self-reported health were statistically controlled.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Age differences in adults' scene memory: knowledge and strategy interactions.

Three studies explored young and old adults' use of knowledge to support memory performance. Subjects viewed slides of familiar scenes containing high expectancy and low expectancy items and received free recall (Experiments 1, 2, and 3), cued recall (Experiments 1 and 2), and recognition (Experiments 1 and 2) tests. In Experiment 1 encoding intentionality was varied between subjects. Young adults performed better than old adults on all tests, but on all tests, both age groups produced a similar pattern of better memory of high expectancy than low expectancy items and showed an encoding intentionality effect for low expectancy items. In Experiments 2 and 3 all subjects were told to intentionally encode only one item from each scene; the remaining items could be encoded incidentally. Young adults performed better than old adults, although again, the pattern of performance of the two age groups was similar. High expectancy and low expectancy intentional items were recalled equally well, but high expectancy incidental items were recalled better than low expectancy incidental items. Low expectancy intentional items were recognized better than high expectancy intentional items, but incidental high expectancy items were recognized better than incidental low expectancy items. It was concluded that young and old adults use their knowledge in similar ways to guide scene memory. The effects of item expectancy and item intentionality were interpreted within Hasher & Zacks' (2) model of automatic and effortful processes.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1987

Aging and memory.

Although some age-related decline in memory probably occurs, most memory changes that result from normal aging are not as extensive within individuals or as representative within the population as previously had been believed (Zarit et al., 1981). Still, when older adults become aware of memory problems, they typically become quite alarmed (see Poon et al., 1980). One reason for this alarm is that memory loss has been found to be a reliable early sign of organic brain disease. Despite the sadness and severity of problems experienced by these patients and their families, the actual incidence of organic brain disease in older adults remains quite low. Unfortunately, it is possible that older adults' concern about less significant memory loss may compound or magnify problems that do exist. Therefore, when working with relatively healthy older adults, it is important first to consider possible transitory, nonmemory factors that could be contributing to memory problems and then to provide the clients with some perspective on their memory failures.

Aged↗
PubMed1987

A life-span study of the interaction of selectivity and knowledge in memory.

Preschool children, young adults, and old adults viewed a series of familiar scenes and were asked to remember 1 item from each. The incidental memory of both children and old adults was less accurate than that of young adults. The result for children contrasts with the typical result of selective memorization research. Memory for high-expectancy items exceeded that for low-expectancy items by a greater margin when items were incidental, suggesting that even preschool children activate scene schemas during encoding. Only the young adults, however, showed the predicted tendency to recognize low-expectancy items better than high-expectancy items when items were intentional. These results may be reconcilable if some, but not all, schema-mediated encoding effects on memory depend on strategic encoding.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1986

Cognitive and social functioning across adulthood: age or student status differences?

Younger adult students between 19 and 24 years of age (M = 21.3 years), older adult students between 61 and 76 years of age (M = 67.9 years), and older adult nonstudents between 62 and 76 years of age (M = 68.5 years) were assessed for health (self-ratings of physical and mental health), social functioning (self-ratings of physical and mental activity, perceived role activity level, perceived roles, locus of control, and age-norm expectations), and cognitive functioning (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised vocabulary and block design, and paired associate memory). Age differences were observed in self-ratings of health, social roles, intellectual performance, and memory. No student status differences were observed. The results are discussed in terms of plasticity of intellectual function and characteristics of student status in later adulthood.

Adult↗
PubMed1984

Cognitive arithmetic: comparison of operations.

Adults' performance of simple arithmetic calculations (addition, multiplication, and numerical comparison) was examined to test predictions of digital (counting), analog, and network models. Although all of these models have been supported by studies of mental addition, each leads to a different prediction concerning relations between the times required for addition, multiplication, and numerical comparison. Pairs of single-digit integers were presented and reaction times (RTs) for adding, multiplying, and comparing the stimuli were collected. A high correlation between RT for addition and multiplication of the same digits was obtained. This result is consistent with a network model, but presents difficulties for both analog and counting models. A "ties" effect of no increase in RT with increases in problem size for doubles such as 2 + 2 has been found in previous studies of addition using verification procedures, but was not found with the production task employed in the present study. Instead, a different kind of ties effect was found. Reaction time for both addition and multiplication of ties increased more slowly with problem size than did RT for non-tie problems. This ties effect, and the finding that probability of making errors contributes independently of problem size to RT support a distinction between location and accessibility of information in a network.

Adult↗
PubMed1983

Forgetting and use of memory aids in 20 to 70 year olds everyday life.

In order to examine age differences in everyday memory experiences, twelve younger (mean age = 28) and twelve older (mean age = 59) adults kept diaries of their experiences of memory failures and use of memory aids. There was a general increase with age in the absolute number of memory failures, upset ratings about memory failures, and frequency of memory aid use. There were no age differences in the relative frequency of particular types of memory failures or memory aids that were used. The results suggested that older adults experience more memory failures and are more concerned about memory failures than younger adults, but that they attempt to deal with this problem by increased use of memory aids.

Adult↗
PubMed1981

Spatial and temporal memory in 20 to 60 year olds.

Younger (mean age = 20 years) and older (mean age = 64 years) adults were tested on spatial and temporal memory tasks. No age difference was observed on the temporal task but older adults performed worse than younger adults on the spatial task. The absence of an age-related decline in performance on the temporal task is counter to most previous developmental research on adults' memory. This finding indicates that normal aging is not associated with poor encoding or retention of all types of information. The presence of an age-related decline in performance on the spatial task is consistent with most research on memory aging. Moreover, this finding indicates that aging affects retention of some types of information often assumed to be encoded automatically.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1981

Semantic and contextual cuing of preschool children's recall.

3 experiments were carried out to investigate cuing of young children's recall. In each experiment younger (3 years) and older (4 1/2 years) preschool children were tested on free and cued recall tasks in which the presence of semantic and contextual cues was manipulated. In the first 2 experiments there was little evidence that the children's recall was facilitated by presence of contextual cues, independent of the facilitation produced by semantic information. In the third experiment, context and target items were integrated experimentally at presentation. In this case, unrelated context cues improved recall. This finding suggests that limitations in the facilitatory effects of context cues for preschool children are related to the ways these young children initially encode target and context items. In all 3 experiments semantic cues aided both younger and older children's recall. Moreover, there was evidence of a developmental increase in the effectiveness of semantic, but not contextual, cues. This finding highlights the importance of growth of the semantic knowledge base for early memory development.

Child Development↗