ORCID Profile
0000-0003-1475-835X
Current Organisations
Lawrence Berkely National Laboratory
,
University of Queensland
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Psychology | Developmental Psychology and Ageing |
Expanding Knowledge in Psychology and Cognitive Sciences | Ageing and Older People
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 19-04-2019
DOI: 10.1111/BJC.12220
Abstract: Previous research has shown that empathy for pain is disrupted at the neural level in people with schizophrenia. However, many of these studies have failed to assess key background contextual variables that have previously been linked to neurophysiological responding. Moreover, no study to date has examined the potential influence of schizotypal characteristics on neurophysiological responding in non-clinical in iduals. People with schizophrenia (N = 17) were compared to demographically matched controls (N = 19) on an event-related potential (ERP) empathy for pain paradigm. The control group also completed a measure of schizotypal personality traits. People with schizophrenia exhibited atypical neural responding at early, emotion-sharing (frontal N110), and late, cognitive (central late positive potential [LPP]) processing stages of pain empathy, relative to controls. In the control group, positive schizotypy traits were significantly negatively related to reduced ERP litude in the late, cognitive (central LPP) processing stage of empathy. These data cross-validate previous studies that have shown that schizophrenia is associated with atypicalities in bottom-up automatic resonance processes that likely contribute to empathic and socio-emotional processing deficits, and indicate that these findings cannot be easily attributed to background contextual differences between the two groups. The results also point to a potential relationship between positive schizotypal characteristics and neurophysiological responding. Implications for simulation theories of empathy and social functioning in schizophrenia are discussed. Empathic processing has been consistently linked to well-being and mental health in many groups, including people with schizophrenia. Previous research has shown that, relative to controls, people with schizophrenia exhibit abnormalities in their neurophysiological empathic response, but in these prior studies, the two groups also differed in a number of potentially important background contextual variables. The current study shows that, when closely matched on background contextual variables, abnormal neural responding is still evident. These data suggest that empathy for pain is disrupted at the neurophysiological level in schizophrenia.
Publisher: S. Karger AG
Date: 2019
DOI: 10.1159/000496730
Abstract: b i Background: /i /b It has often been argued that there is a relationship between oral health and cognitive decline in late adulthood, but a recent systematic review concluded that it was unclear “how or whether” any relationship exists. However, most of the studies that contributed to this review operationalised cognitive function using a brief cognitive screen and/or dementia status. b i Objective: /i /b An updated systematic review was conducted that focused on how oral health relates to specific cognitive abilities in older adults (specifically, the neurocognitive domains specified in the DSM-5: learning and memory, perceptual motor function, language, executive function, complex attention, and social cognition). b i Methods: /i /b A systematic review was undertaken and completed in August 2018. From a total of 1,304 potentially relevant articles, 23 were identified that assessed oral health and at least one of the specific cognitive domains in an older adult cohort. b i Results: /i /b The most consistent relationships were identified with learning and memory, complex attention, and executive function. For each of these cognitive domains, most studies identified significant unadjusted associations with oral health where adjustments for covariates were made, at least one of the associations with oral health remained significant in half or more of the studies. Results were less clear for the domains of language and perceptual motor function. No study assessed the relationship between social cognition and oral health. b i Conclusions: /i /b This systematic review provides evidence of an association between learning and memory, complex attention, and executive function with oral health in old age. Gaining a detailed picture of how specific types of cognitive decline relate to oral health has potential implications for earlier identification of older adults who experience oral health problems, and may also inform the development of more effective interventions focused on enhancing oral health outcomes in this group.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2019
DOI: 10.1016/J.NEUBIOREV.2019.07.011
Abstract: Social perceptual impairment is a common presenting feature of Parkinson's disease (PD) that has the potential to contribute considerably to disease burden. The current study reports a meta-analytic integration of 79 studies which shows that, relative to controls, PD is associated with a moderate emotion recognition deficit (g = -0.57, K = 73), and that this deficit is robust and almost identical across facial and prosodic modalities. However, the magnitude of this impairment does appear to vary as a function of task and emotion type, with deficits generally greatest for identification tasks (g = -0.65, K = 54), and for negative relative to other basic emotions. With respect to clinical variables, dopaminergic medication, deep brain stimulation, and a predominant left side onset of motor symptoms are each associated with greater social perceptual difficulties. However, the magnitude of social perceptual impairment seen for the four atypical parkinsonian conditions is broadly comparable to that associated with PD. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 16-11-2022
DOI: 10.1111/JSR.13787
Abstract: It is well established that poor sleep directly increases stress and aggression, but potential mediators of this relationship remain poorly understood. The present study provided the first direct test of whether capacity for emotion regulation mediated the relationship between sleep with stress. It also aimed to extend current understanding of whether emotion regulation might mediate the association between sleep and aggression, by assessing four distinct subcomponents of aggression (anger, hostility, verbal aggression, and physical aggression). In service of these goals, 740 participants completed validated measures of sleep, stress, aggression, and emotion regulation. Results showed that emotion regulation partially mediated the relationship between sleep quality with stress, anger, hostility, and verbal aggression, and fully mediated the relationship between sleep with physical aggression. These data provide novel evidence that emotion regulation abilities may serve as a protective factor against the negative consequences of sleep disturbances.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 09-2022
DOI: 10.1037/EMO0000926
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2022
DOI: 10.1016/J.NEUBIOREV.2022.104732
Abstract: Prior research suggests that sleep is associated with increased subjective stress and aggression, but important questions remain about the typical magnitude of these relationships, as well as their potential moderators. We therefore conducted the first meta-analysis of this literature. Across 340 associational and experimental studies, significant associations were identified between sleep with both subjective stress (r = 0.307, p < .001) and aggression (r = 0.258, p < .001) in in iduals from the general population, as well as between sleep with subjective stress (r = 0.425, p < .001) in in iduals with sleep disorders. Experimental sleep restriction also led to increased subjective stress (g = 0.403, p = .017) and aggression (g = 0.330, p = .042). These findings suggest that poorer sleep is associated with - and leads to - heightened levels of subjective stress and aggression. These findings, and their implications, are discussed in relation to neurobiological literature, which highlights the complex interplay between metabolic activity in the brain, hormonal changes, and behavior.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 12-2020
DOI: 10.1037/PAG0000563
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2021
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 2018
Abstract: It is now well established that relative to their younger counterparts, older adults experience difficulties on tasks that require the conscious and explicit processing of others’ mental states (e.g., beliefs, intentions theory of mind [ToM]). Despite the importance of relatively automatic and unconscious mental state attribution processes in everyday life, no study to date has tested whether tasks that require the implicit processing of others’ belief states also show age-related changes. In this study, younger and older adults completed an implicit false belief task, in which their eye movement patterns were monitored while they passively viewed true and false belief movies. In addition, they were assessed on measures of explicit ToM processing. While older adults showed impairments in explicit ToM processing relative to younger adults, both age groups demonstrated a similar capacity for implicit false belief processing. These findings suggest that implicit components of ToM are preserved in late adulthood and are consistent with dual process models of ageing that emphasise age-related stability in automatic processing and declines in more controlled and effortful cognitive operations. We discuss the potential implications of these findings for social interactions in old age.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 29-06-2023
DOI: 10.1037/PAG0000764
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 19-01-2023
DOI: 10.1038/S41598-023-28183-1
Abstract: Episodic foresight refers to one’s capacity to use imagined scenarios to guide future-directed behaviors. It is important in facilitating complex activities of daily living, such as managing finances. Broader literature shows that older adults perform more poorly on tests of episodic foresight relative to their younger counterparts. At the same time, age-related changes in sleep often contribute to age-related decline in other cognitive abilities known to support episodic foresight, such as memory. No study to date has tested whether sleep quality is associated with episodic foresight when it is measured behaviorally or whether this relationship is moderated by age. To address this, in the present study healthy younger ( n = 39) and older ( n = 41) adults were asked to wear an actigraphy watch and self-report their sleep quality for seven nights. Participants then completed the virtual-week foresight task—a behavioral assessment of episodic foresight. Neither objective or subjective sleep quality predicted episodic foresight outcomes, and this was not moderated by age group. Bayesian analyses provided evidence in favour of the null hypotheses. These results suggest that sleep quality (at least in healthy adult populations) may not be linked to episodic foresight.
Publisher: Annual Reviews
Date: 18-01-2023
DOI: 10.1146/ANNUREV-PSYCH-033020-121832
Abstract: This review focuses on conceptual and empirical research on determinants of social cognitive aging. We present an integrated model [the social cognitive resource (SCoRe) framework] to organize the literature and describe how social cognitive resilience is determined jointly by capacity and motivational resources. We discuss how neurobiological aging, driven by genetic and environmental influences, is associated with broader sensory, neural, and physiological changes that are direct determinants of capacity as well as indirect determinants of motivation via their influence on expectation of loss versus reward and cognitive effort valuation. Research is reviewed that shows how contextual factors, such as relationship status, familiarity, and practice, are fundamental to understanding the availability of both types of resource. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of social cognitive change in late adulthood for everyday social functioning and with recommendations for future research.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 17-10-2018
Abstract: Oxytocin is a neuropeptide involved in a range of social processes, and prior research has shown that intranasal oxytocin (iOT) may enhance trusting behaviors. However, it is unclear whether iOT influences perceptions of whether a face is trustworthy. In addition, no studies in this literature have investigated whether the participant’s age may play a moderating role in the effects of iOT on trust. We aimed to examine for the first time whether iOT influences perceptions of facial trustworthiness and eye-gaze patterns and, if so, whether age moderates these iOT effects. One hundred and eighteen participants took part in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, within-groups study. Participants made judgments about the perceived trustworthiness of a series of faces while their eye movements were monitored. Younger and older adults differed in their judgments of facial trustworthiness. However, most critically, iOT had no effect on these judgments for either age group. For the eye-tracking data, prior age effects in attending to the stimuli were replicated, with older adults gazing less at the eye region and more at the mouth region relative to younger adults. However, iOT had no effect on eye gaze. These findings are discussed in relation to the growing body of literature that suggests that the effect of iOT on social processing is complex and may not be as robust as first thought.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2018
DOI: 10.1016/J.YHBEH.2018.01.009
Abstract: Oxytocin is a neuropeptide that plays a key role in social processing and there are several studies suggesting that intranasally administered oxytocin may enhance social cognitive abilities and visual attention in healthy and clinical groups. However, there are very few studies to date that have investigated the potential benefits of intranasal oxytocin (iOT) on older adults' social cognitive abilities. This is a surprising omission, because relative to their younger counterparts, older adults also exhibit a range of social cognitive difficulties and also show differences in the way they visually attend to social information. Therefore, we tested the effect of iOT (24 IU) versus a placebo spray on 59 older and 61 younger adults' social cognitive abilities and visual attention using a double-blind placebo-controlled within-groups design. While iOT provided no overall age-related benefit on social cognitive abilities, the key finding to emerge was that iOT improved ToM ability in both age-groups when the task had minimal contextual information, but not when the task had enriched contextual information. Interestingly, iOT had gender specific effects during a ToM task with minimal context. For males in both age-groups, iOT reduced gazing to the social aspects of the scenes (i.e., faces & bodies), and for females, iOT eliminated age differences in gaze patterns that were observed in the placebo condition. These effects on eye-gaze were not observed in a very similar ToM task that included more enriched contextual information. Overall, these findings highlight the interactive nature of iOT with task related factors (e.g., context), and are discussed in relation to the social salience hypothesis of oxytocin.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 13-12-2021
DOI: 10.1111/BJC.12274
Abstract: Acquired brain damage is associated with a reduced capacity for empathy, and emerging evidence indicates that there may also be elevated levels of schizotypy. However, although a relationship between schizotypy and empathy has been identified in other populations, no study to date has tested whether this relationship is also evident following acquired brain damage, and if so, whether it is specific to certain types of brain damage, or specific types of empathy. People with acquired brain damage restricted to either frontal (N = 18) or non-frontal (N = 24) neural structures and demographically matched controls (N = 48) completed an assessment of schizotypy and a measure of empathy that differentiated between cognitive, emotional, and social skills empathy. Relative to the control group, people with frontal and non-frontal brain injuries reported elevated schizotypy, with the frontal group also reporting lower social skills empathy. Only in the frontal group was there support for an association between schizotypy and empathy, and this was specific to the social skills component of empathy. Schizotypy levels are elevated following brain damage, and frontal brain injury is linked to greater difficulties with the social skills component of empathy. Schizotypy appears to be an important consideration when understanding the link between empathy and frontal brain damage, with higher schizotypy levels associated with reduced social skills empathy in this population. Future research is now needed to establish whether problems with more implicit aspects of social understanding are relevant to understanding the relationship between schizotypy and poor social behavioural outcomes identified in other clinical groups that present with frontal brain damage. People with an acquired brain injury experience deficits in empathic processing as well as elevated levels of schizotypal traits. Schizotypy levels and social skills empathy were inversely related in people who had experienced a frontal acquired brain injury, suggesting that schizotypy might be important for understanding social skill difficulties in this particular population. These findings highlight the potential benefit of including social cognitive assessments and schizotypy measures in standard neuropsychological assessment batteries.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 20-05-2020
DOI: 10.1017/S1355617720000478
Abstract: A large literature now shows that Alzheimer’s disease (AD) disrupts a number of social cognitive abilities, including social perceptual function and theory of mind (ToM). However, less well understood is how the specific subcomponents of ToM as well as both the broader and specific subcomponents of empathic processing are affected. The current study provides the first meta-analytic review of AD that focuses on both empathy and ToM as broad constructs, as well as their overlapping (cognitive empathy and affective ToM) and distinct (affective empathy and cognitive ToM) subcomponents. Aggregated across 31 studies, the results revealed that, relative to controls, AD is associated with large-sized deficits in both cognitive ToM ( g = 1.09) and affective ToM/cognitive empathy ( g = 0.76). However, no statistical differences were found between the AD participants and controls on affective empathic abilities ( g = 0.36). These data point to a potentially important disconnect between core aspects of social cognitive processing in people with AD. The practical and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 02-11-2017
Abstract: Older adults have difficulties in identifying most facial expressions of emotion. However, most aging studies have presented static photographs of intense expressions, whereas in everyday experience people see emotions that develop and change. The present study was designed to assess whether age-related difficulties with emotion recognition are reduced when more ecologically valid (i.e., dynamic) stimuli are used. We examined the effect of stimuli format (i.e., static vs. dynamic) on facial affect recognition in two separate studies that included independent s les and distinct stimuli sets. In addition to younger and older participants, a middle-aged group was included in Study 1 and eye gaze patterns were assessed in Study 2. Across both studies, older adults performed worse than younger adults on measures of facial affect recognition. In Study 1, older and-middle aged adults benefited from dynamic stimuli, but only when the emotional displays were subtle. Younger adults gazed more at the eye region of the face relative to older adults (Study 2), but dynamic presentation increased attention towards the eye region for younger adults only. Together, these studies provide important and novel insights into the specific circumstances in which older adults may be expected to experience difficulties in perceiving facial emotions.
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 18-02-2023
Abstract: Gaze following is a core social-cognitive capacity. Previous work has shown that older adults have reduced gaze following relative to younger adults. However, all previous studies have exclusively used stimuli with low ecological validity, leaving room for alternative explanations for the observed age effects. Motivational models suggest that, relative to younger adults, older adults expend cognitive resources more selectively, such that they are less motivated to engage in tasks that are not meaningful or personally relevant. This may explain why their gaze following is reduced when stimuli are low in ecological validity. An expertise-based account suggests that older adults will have enhanced gaze following owing to their greater experience with gaze cues, but that this enhancement may only emerge when stimuli are naturalistic and match those that they have more experience with. In the present study, younger (N = 63) and older adults (N = 68) completed a standard gaze-cueing task (static images) and a gaze-cueing task with enhanced ecological validity (videos of shifting gaze). In contrast to past research, both groups showed equivalent gaze following. Notably, in line with motivational model theorising and experience-based accounts, ecological validity was associated with enhanced gaze following for older but not younger adults. These findings highlight the importance of considering stimulus ecological validity in social-cognitive ageing research and provide information regarding the specific types of gaze cues that may be most effective in producing the cognitive and perceptual benefits associated with gaze cues for older adults.
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 12-03-2202
Abstract: The present study provides a meta-analytic assessment of how gaze-cued attention—a core social-cognitive process—is influenced by normal adult aging. A multilevel meta-analysis of standardized mean changes was conducted on gaze-cueing effects. Age effects were quantified as standardized mean differences in gaze-cueing effect sizes between young and older adult s les. We identified 82 gaze-cueing effects (k = 26, N = 919 participants). Of these, 37 were associated with young adults (k = 12, n = 438) and 45 with older adults (k = 14, n = 481). Relative to younger adults, older adults had a reduced gaze-cueing effect overall, g = −0.59, with this age effect greater when the cues were predictive, g = −3.24, rather than nonpredictive, g = −0.78. These results provide the clearest evidence to date that adult aging is associated with a reduction in gaze-cued attention. The results also speak to potential mechanisms of this age effect. In line with cognitive decline models of aging, it was demonstrated that when gaze cues were predictive, only younger adults seem to benefit, suggesting that older adults exhibit a particularly reduced capacity to use gaze cues volitionally.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 30-07-2020
DOI: 10.1002/GPS.5369
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 14-12-2022
DOI: 10.1177/17470218221141644
Abstract: Age differences in emotion perception are now well documented. However, a key limitation of many studies in this literature is the reliance on highly artificial tasks that lack context and consequently have poor ecological validity. This study reports two separate experiments that investigated age differences in emotion perception abilities using a highly contextualised film-based assessment along with a traditional emotion perception task. Experiment 2 additionally included a middle-aged s le and an assessment of eye-gaze patterns to the emotional films. The inclusion of eye-tracking in Experiment 2 was motivated by the fact that older adults consistently show visual biases to static emotion stimuli, yet it remains unclear whether biases also emerge in response to dynamic contextualised emotion stimuli. Experiment 1 identified age effects recognising displays of anger in the traditional emotion perception task but no age differences emerged on the film-based task. This finding was replicated in Experiment 2 with significant group differences on the traditional emotion perception task but no age differences on the film-based task. Experiment 2 also showed that there were no age differences in gaze patterns to these stimuli, showing for the first time that age-related visual biases to emotion stimuli may be task dependent. These findings highlight the fact that task-related features play a key role in the evaluation of age effects in emotion perception.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 29-10-2019
DOI: 10.1017/S1041610219001583
Abstract: Early-life stress (ELS) has previously been identified as a risk factor for cognitive decline, but this work has predominantly focused on clinical groups and indexed traditional cognitive domains. It, therefore, remains unclear whether ELS is related to cognitive function in healthy community-dwelling older adults, as well as whether any effects of ELS also extend to social cognition. To test each of these questions, the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) was administered to 484 older adults along with a comprehensive neuropsychological test battery and a well-validated test of social cognitive function. The results revealed no differences in global cognition according to overall experiences of ELS. However, a closer examination into the different ELS subscales showed that global cognition was poorer in those who had experienced physical neglect (relative to those who had not). Social cognitive function did not differ according to experiences to ELS. These results indicate that the relationship between ELS and cognition in older age may be dependent on the nature of the trauma experienced.
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 03-10-2022
Abstract: Social frailty poses a major threat to successful aging, but its social cognitive and psychological well-being correlates remain poorly understood. This cross-sectional study provides initial insights into whether social cognitive difficulties in older age are associated with social frailty, as well as how social frailty is linked to psychological characteristics known to be important for health and well-being. Ninety community-dwelling older adults completed measures of social frailty and social cognition (social perception, theory of mind, affective empathy, and informant-rated social behavior) as well as measures of psychological function known to be important for health and well-being, both positively (resilience and life satisfaction) and negatively (demoralization, social anxiety, and apathy). Measures of cognitive frailty, physical frailty, and depression were also administered to test the specificity of any observed relationships with social frailty. Both affective empathy and social behavior were predictive of increased social frailty, but social behavior emerged as the only unique predictor after controlling for covariates. Social frailty also predicted unique variance in all five measures of psychological well-being, and for three of these measures (demoralization, resilience, and life satisfaction), the effects remained significant even after adjusting for covariates. Findings are discussed in relation to models of socioemotional aging and frailty. Potential mechanisms linking social behavior to social capital in older age are identified, as well as how loss of social resources might both directly and indirectly impact well-being.
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH
Date: 26-04-2022
DOI: 10.1515/REVNEURO-2021-0038
Abstract: Empathy is essential for navigating complex social environments. Prior work has shown associations between rs53576, a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) located in the oxytocin receptor gene ( OXTR ), and generalized empathy. We undertook a systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the effects of rs53576 on subdomains of empathy, specifically cognitive empathy (CE) and affective empathy (AE), in healthy adults. Twenty cohorts of 8933 participants aged 18–98 were identified, including data from the Sydney Memory and Ageing Study, a cohort of older community adults. Meta-analyses found G homozygotes had greater generalized empathic abilities only in young to middle-aged adults. While meta-analyses of empathy subdomains yielded no significant overall effects, there were differential effects based on ethnicity. G homozygotes were associated with greater CE abilities in Asian cohorts (standardized mean difference SMD: 0.09 [2.8·10 −3 –0.18]), and greater AE performance in European cohorts [SMD: 0.12 (0.04–0.21)]. The current literature highlights a need for further work that distinguishes between genetic and ethnocultural effects and explores effects of advanced age on this relationship.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 10-08-2018
Abstract: Age-related differences on theory of mind (ToM) tasks are well established. However, the literature has been criticised for predominantly relying on tasks with poor ecological validity, and consequently it remains unclear whether these age differences extend to tasks with greater realism. In addition, we currently have a limited understanding of the factors that may contribute to age-related declines in ToM. To address these issues, we conducted two studies that assessed age differences in ToM using multimodal social scene stimuli. Study 1 also examined eye movements to assess whether biases in visual attention may be related to age-related difficulties in ToM, and Study 2 included an assessment of social attention (as indexed by biological motion perception) and working memory to assess whether these capacities may explain age difficulties in ToM. In both studies, the results showed that older adults performed worse than their younger counterparts on the ToM tasks, indicating that age-related difficulties in ToM extend to measures that more closely represent everyday social interactions. The eye-tracking data in Study 1 showed that older adults gazed less at the faces of protagonists in the social scenes compared with younger adults however, these visual biases were not associated with ToM ability. Study 2 showed that older age was associated with a reduced ability to detect biological motion cues, and this mediated age-related variance in ToM ability. These findings are discussed in relation to competing theoretical frameworks of ageing that predict either improvements or declines in ToM with age.
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 19-08-2023
Abstract: Normal adult aging is associated with changes in social cognition. Although 4 social cognitive domains have been identified (social perception, theory of mind [ToM], affective empathy, and social behavior), no study has tested all 4 domains concurrently in a life-span s le, limiting understanding of the relative magnitude of age-related changes across domains. This study addresses this gap by providing the first assessment of all 4 social cognitive domains in an adult life-span s le. Three hundred and seventy-two participants ranging from 18 to 101 years of age took part in this study. Participants completed a testing battery that assessed social perception, ToM, affective empathy, and social behavior, as well as broader cognitive function and well-being. The results showed that adult aging is associated with multidirectional changes in social cognitive abilities, with ToM and social perception showing nonlinear decline across much of the life-span, and affective empathy and social behavior showing improvement. Age remained a significant predictor of all 4 social cognitive domains, even after accounting for broader cognitive function. Weak associations emerged between some of the social cognitive abilities and and indices of broader well-being. These findings provide novel and important evidence that normative aging is associated with both gains and losses in social cognition that occur at distinct points of the adult life-span, and that are at least partially independent of general age-related cognitive decline.
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 22-07-2023
Abstract: Social cognitive function often declines in older age but the mechanisms underlying these declines are not completely clear. Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and muscular strength are positively associated with broader cognitive function in older adults, yet surprisingly, no study has examined whether a similar relationship exists between CRF or muscular strength and social cognition in older age. We assessed whether higher CRF and muscular strength were associated with enhanced social cognitive function in a s le of fifty older adults (Mage = 70.08, standard deviation = 3.93). Participants completed a gold-standard cardiopulmonary exercise test to assess CRF, an isometric handgrip strength test to index muscular strength, and validated measures of social cognition to index emotion perception and theory of mind (ToM). The results showed that CRF and muscular strength did not explain any unique variance in older adults’ social cognitive performance. Bayesian analyses confirmed that the evidence for the null hypothesis was moderate for all tested relationships, except for the relationship between CRF and cognitive ToM where the evidence for the null was anecdotal. This study has provided the first evidence to suggest that CRF and muscular strength—two important modifiable lifestyle factors—are not associated with social cognition in healthy older adults. However, replication studies are now needed to cross-validate these findings and to clarify whether any moderating variables may be important for understanding the relationship between fitness and social cognition in older age.
Publisher: S. Karger AG
Date: 2021
DOI: 10.1159/000511607
Abstract: b i Background: /i /b Most evidence now indicates that cognitive function is related to poorer oral health in late adulthood, but that this relationship is not invariant across specific cognitive domains. Prospective memory (PM) is a core memory skill that refers to memory for future intentions and is known to be related to the formation of habits such as tooth flossing. However, the relationship between PM and oral health has been subject to only limited empirical study. b i Objective: /i /b The two studies reported in this paper were designed to test whether PM is related to oral health in older adults of varying vulnerability status. b i Methods: /i /b Study 1 s led community-dwelling older adults ( i N /i = 172) living independently in the community Study 2 s led older adults living in a retirement village ( i N /i = 32). Participants in both studies were asked to complete a behavioural measure of PM, with their oral health indexed via self-report (Study 1) or an objective oral health exam (Study 2). b i Results: /i /b In both studies, relationships emerged between event-based PM and oral health, with Study 2 showing that these relationships were specific to oral health measures of plaque and calculus. b i Conclusions: /i /b Older adults are particularly vulnerable to dental pathology, with important implications for their broader health and well-being. By showing that there is a relationship between oral health and a particular type of PM, this work will have potential implications for the development of more effective interventions focused on enhancing oral health outcomes in this group, such as those focused on strengthening habit formation.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2020
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2023
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 14-01-2019
Publisher: IOP Publishing
Date: 05-2018
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 09-01-2021
DOI: 10.1080/13825585.2020.1713290
Abstract: Prior research has shown that older adults perform more poorly than young on tasks that assess theory of mind (ToM). However, these studies have used tasks that are performed "offline" (i.e., requiring a second-person perspective) as opposed to "online" (i.e., requiring a first-person perspective). Therefore, the present study was designed to establish whether age-related ToM difficulties are also evident when an "online" measure of ToM is used. Forty younger and 40 older adults completed the Virtual Assessment of Mentalizing Ability (VAMA) along with two conventional ToM tasks. No age differences were evident on the conventional measures, but older adults had lower accuracy on the VAMA relative to their younger counterparts. The overall pattern of errors did not differ between the groups. These data provide no evidence that age effects are reduced when stimuli are used that are more likely to engage the mentalizing processes elicited in real life social interactions.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 12-2021
DOI: 10.1037/BUL0000353
Abstract: Given limitations in the amount of visual information that a person can simultaneously process through to conscious perception, selective visual attention is necessary. Visual signals in the environment aid this selection process by triggering reflexive shifts of covert attention to locations of potential importance. One such signal appears to be others' eye gaze. Indeed, a gaze-cueing effect, whereby healthy adults respond faster to targets that are presented at locations cued rather than miscued by eye gaze has been consistently observed in the empirical literature. Critically though, the influences of task and cue features on this effect are not well understood. To address this gap, we report a meta-analytic integration of 423 gaze-cueing effects using a multilevel approach. A gaze-cueing effect emerged across all levels of the assessed task and cue features, indicating that others' eye gaze reliably directs observers' attention. We found that the magnitude of the gaze-cueing effect was moderated by whether direct gaze cues preceded directional gaze cues or not the cue-target stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA), whether participants had to detect, localize, or categorize targets and the cue's facial expression. Whether or not the gaze cue remained on screen after the target appeared, and whether schematic faces, computer-generated faces, or images of real faces were used as cues, did not appear to reliably function as moderators. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed, particularly in relation to the social attention system. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 08-10-2022
DOI: 10.1177/10731911221127902
Abstract: Empathy is a core component of social cognition that can be indexed via behavioral, informant-report, or self-report methods of assessment. However, concerns have been raised regarding the lack of convergence between these assessment approaches for cognitive empathy. Here, we provided the first comparison of all three measurement approaches for cognitive and affective empathy in a large adult s le ( N = 371) aged 18 to 101 years. We found that poor convergence was more of a problem for cognitive empathy than affective empathy. While none of the cognitive empathy measures correlated with each other, for affective empathy, self-report was significantly associated with both behavioral and informant-report assessments. However, for both cognitive and affective empathy, there was evidence for poor discriminant validity within the measures. Out of the three assessment approaches, only the informant-report measures were consistently associated with indices of social functioning. Importantly, age did not moderate any of the tested relationships, indicating that both the strengths and the limitations of these different types of assessment do not appear to vary as a function of age. These findings highlight the variation that exists among empathy measures and are discussed in relation to their practical implications for the assessment of empathy.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2021
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 05-05-2021
DOI: 10.1017/S1355617721000357
Abstract: Discrepancies exist in reports of social cognition deficits in in iduals with premanifest Huntington’s disease (HD) however, the reason for this variability has not been investigated. The aims of this study were to (1) evaluate group- and in idual-level social cognitive performance and (2) examine intra-in idual variability (dispersion) across social cognitive domains in in iduals with premanifest HD. Theory of mind (ToM), social perception, empathy, and social connectedness were evaluated in 35 in iduals with premanifest HD and 29 healthy controls. Cut-off values beneath the median and 1.5 × the interquartile range below the 25th percentile (P 25 – 1.5 × IQR) of healthy controls for each variable were established for a profiling method. Dispersion between social cognitive domains was also calculated. Compared to healthy controls, in iduals with premanifest HD performed worse on all social cognitive domains except empathy. Application of the profiling method revealed a large proportion of people with premanifest HD fell below healthy control median values across ToM ( %), social perception ( %), empathy ( %), and social behaviour ( %), with a percentage of these in iduals displaying more pronounced impairments in empathy (20%) and ToM (22%). Social cognition dispersion did not differ between groups. No significant correlations were found between social cognitive domains and mood, sleep, and neurocognitive outcomes. Significant group-level social cognition deficits were observed in the premanifest HD cohort. However, our profiling method showed that only a small percentage of these in iduals experienced marked difficulties in social cognition, indicating the importance of in idual-level assessments, particularly regarding future personalised treatments.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 22-01-2019
DOI: 10.1080/17470919.2018.1564694
Abstract: Emotional expressions evoke rapid facial reactions in the perceiver that are consistent with the valence of the observed expression. We aimed to investigate whether this robust facial reaction is purely a motor matching response or instead represents underlying affective processes. Participants' (N = 60)
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 08-2019
DOI: 10.1037/PAG0000373
Abstract: Prior studies have shown that older adults perceive sadness differently relative to younger adults. However, the stimuli used to test older adults' perceptions of sadness have been limited by the fact that they have not included emotional tears-a salient emotional cue that has previously been shown to enhance perceptions of sadness in younger adults. This study reports three experiments that test whether the presence of tears differentially affects older and younger adults' perceptions of sadness. Experiment 1 was a laboratory-based experiment and also assessed facial mimicry responses using electromyography (EMG). Experiments 2 and 3 were conducted online. Across all three experiments, participants rated faces as showing greater sadness when tears were present compared to absent, and most critically, participant age did not moderate this effect-young and older adults responded equivalently to the presence of tears. Another finding to emerge across all experiments was that older faces were consistently rated as showing more sadness than younger faces, suggesting that there may be a bias toward attributing more sadness to people in older age. The facial EMG data showed that both age groups exhibited greater frowning (relative to smiling) responses when viewing the sad faces, but this effect was not moderated by the presence of tears. Taken together, the data from these three experiments show stability in terms of how younger and older adults respond to the presence of tears in both age groups, behavioral responses to sadness are equivalently enhanced. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 06-2021
DOI: 10.1037/PAG0000593
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 11-2020
DOI: 10.1037/PAG0000571
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 20-04-2023
DOI: 10.1038/S41598-023-33749-0
Abstract: Social frailty refers to an inability to meet basic social needs and has been identified as a threat to physical and mental health. Although social frailty has been linked with many adverse health and well-being outcomes, potential mediators of the relationship between social frailty and well-being remain poorly understood. Emotion regulation refers to the capacity to alter the experience of emotions to behave in accordance with a desired goal. The present study was designed to provide the first direct test of whether emotion regulation mediates the relationships between social frailty and important well-being outcomes (stress, anxiety, and depression). A total of 790 participants completed validated measures of social frailty, stress, anxiety, depression, and emotion regulation. In line with our preregistered hypotheses, higher social frailty predicted increased stress, anxiety, and depression, and each of these relationships were partially mediated by emotion regulation capacity. These data provide novel evidence that emotion regulation abilities may serve as a protective factor against the negative consequences of social frailty.
Location: United States of America
Start Date: 11-2020
End Date: 11-2025
Amount: $461,088.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityStart Date: 12-2022
End Date: 07-2026
Amount: $462,440.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded Activity