Week 1 question

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Week 1 question

• To what extent has life expectancy increased over
  recorded history, and how is this likely to
  impact the social welfare system in future?

2
Life expectancy and social welfare
3
Week 2 question

• Discuss whether all aspects of neuronal
  functioning change with age.

4
Neuronal changes with age

• 1 point Fewer neurons in older adult brains
• (5-10 loss in from 20 to 65)
• (loss greatest in frontal lobes)
• 1 point Neurofibrillary tangles increase with
  age
• (axonal fibres tangle to form filaments)
• 1 point Dendritic shrinkage with age
• (but recent evidence continued dendritic growth)
• 1 point Neuritic plaques increase with age
• (lumps of dying neurons)
• Extra points
• Most studies animal/postmortem
• Decreases in neurotransmitters dopamine and
  acetylecholine

5
Week 3 question

• Outline some of the effects of physical exercise
  on older adults.

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Physical exercise

• 1 point Exercise improves health and physical
  fitness
• (Physical benefits as strong in 80)
• 1 point Mood, sleep and ability to resist stress
  improve with physical exercise
• 2 points Exercise improves cognitive functions
• e.g. attention, memory, executive function
• Evidence from Colcombe Kramer (2003)
  meta-analysis
• 1 point Exercise cuts risk of dementia

7
Week 4 question

• Outline the effects of age on selective attention

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Selective attention

• 1 point Selective attention is choosing what
  information to process further
• Necessary because capacity is limited.
• 2 points Older adults worse at visual search
• (measures how quickly can detect specific stimuli
  in a visual array)
• (age differences greater if lots of distracters
  or location unpredictable)
• 2 points To attend, must inhibit irrelevant
  information
• Old poorer at inhibiting irrelevant info
• (So poorer at focusing on what IS relevant)

9
Week 5 question

• Explain what crystallised and fluid intelligence
  are, and how they are affected by age.

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Crystallised and fluid intellligence

• 1 point Fluid intelligence novel problem
  solving (Ability to be flexible and adaptive)
• 2 points Age-related declines from age 20.
• In tasks like Ravens Matrices, or Block Design
• Tasks tend to be effortful and attention-demanding
  , biologically based.
• 1 point Crystallised intelligence knowledge
  (ability to apply knowledge/skills)
• 2 points Age related invariance or increases
• In tasks like vocabulary tests, which are
  culturally determined, relatively automatic

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Week 6 questions

• Are there age differences in all aspects of long
  term memory?
• Illustrate with reference to procedural, semantic
  and episodic memory.

12
Age and long term memory

• 1 point Key issue there are not age differences
  in all aspects of long term memory.
• 1 or 2 points
• Procedural memory practised skills
• Not generally affected by age
• 1 or 2 points
• Semantic memory facts and knowledge
• Not much age difference, although older may have
  retrieval difficulties
• 1 or 2 points
• Episodic memory memory for events
• Older adults problems with episodic memory, e.g.
  recall less, more intrusion errors, less
  efficient strategy use.

13
Week 7 question

• Outline Carstensens socioemotional selectivity
  theory and the implications it has for aging and
  emotions.

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Socioemotional selectivity theory

• Theory 2 points
• Young adults focus on future goals and developing
  new relationships
• Older adults focus on present goals (perceive
  time as limited), and invest in close existing
  relationships
• Implications for aging and emotions 3 points
• Old maximise experience of positive emotions by
• Choosing positive over challenging situations
• Attending to positive information
• Interpreting situations positively
• Regulating emotions to emphasize positive aspects