Submitted to Miss Sobia

Submitted by Lubna Ishtiaq

Department Psychology (7th Semester

. of bs-honours)

Tele phone number is 03127638646

Gujrat pakistan

What is Cognitive Psychology?

Cognitive psychology is the branch of psychology that studies mental processes

including how people think, perceive, remember and learn. As part of the larger field of
cognitive science, this branch of psychology is related to other disciplines including
neuroscience, philosophy, and linguistics.

The core focus of cognitive psychology is on how people acquire, process and store
information. There are numerous practical applications for cognitive research, such as
ways to improve memory, how to increase decision-making accuracy, and how to
structure educational curricula to enhance learning.

In simply we can say that cognitive psychology is an approach to psychology that

emphasizes internal mental processes

What is Cognition?

Cognition can be defined as:

The mental processes and activities used in perceiving,

remembering and thinking (Reber & Reber, 2001).

In other words it can also be defined as:

A term referring to the mental processes involved in gaining

knowledge and comprehension, including thinking, knowing, remembering, judging, and
problem solving. These are higher-level functions of the brain and encompass language,
imagination, perception, and planning is, known as cognition.

What is an Old age?

The latter part of (human) life, Old age begins with the
deterioration of physical abilities such as sight, hearing,
walking (stick required) etc, changes in cognitive functions
such as decision making skills, problem solving ability,
intelligence, memory, creativity etc and has limited
regenerative abilities and is more prone to disease,
syndromes, and sickness than other adults and duration of old
age is from 65 and ends in death.

Cognitive Development in old age:

Like physical and social development; cognitive development also starts to deteriorate,
as person moves into late adulthood (old age). Though most of our intellectual abilities
increase or remain stable throughout early and middle -adulthood, once beyond the age
of 65 everyone experiences a decline in all of our five primary mental abilities.

Five Primary Mental Abilities are:

Verbal Meaning

Spatial Orientation

Inductive Reasoning

Number Ability

Word Fluency

Although thinking processes become slower and less sharp once a person reaches old
age, there is much individual variation in these declines, and each particular cognitive
ability shows a different range of age-related decline for each separate individual.

1. Sensory Register:

Senescence causes relatively small decline in the sensitivity & power of the brain's
capacity of the sensory register. To overcome this small decline one can use
techniques such as asking others to speak slowly or by looking longer or more
intently at a significant image. But, for information to register in the first place it
must cross the sensory threshold. Thus, while sensory register itself declines only a
small amount, the decline in sensory acuity can be large.

2. Memory: scienticts discribe the human brain as having two memory systems that
work together to help us to learn and recall. Short-term memory and long-term
memory, the information hold in short-term memory must be transformed or
consolidated, into long-term memory if we are holding on to it. This
transformation usually occurs in steps.

Short-Term Memory(working Mempry): gather new information

o Working memory has two interrelated functions: Temporarily stores

information so it can be used consciously and Processes information
that is currently in conscious mind using integrative reasoning, mental
calculations, and drawing of inferences. With working memory, its
capacity for storage and processing in old age produces a noticeable
decrease, more than any previous biosocial stage.
 One reason for this loss is that processing takes longer with age.

Long-Term Memory (Linking Input and Output): is the accumulation of

information that we have stored over the years. Or knowledge base is the
storehouse of all the information ever put into memory. So what happens to
the knowledge base with old age?

o When groups of older and younger adults are asked to recall

something specific (historical events or something recently learned)
the younger adult usually performed better. This coincide with
accumulated research, that long-term as well as short-term memory
are diminished in older adults

Information in long-term memory can be classified as either procedural/ Explicit

Memory (easy to retrieve, usually with words. Most explicit memory involves consciously
learned words, data, and concepts, such as walking, cutting with scissors or writing) or
declarative/Implicit Memory (unconscious or automatic memory that is usually stored
via habits, emotional responses, routine procedures, and various sensations such as
names, dates, or other facts that have been learned).

According to Perlmutters research on memory, 1988; implicit memory is much

less vulnerable to age related difference than explicit memory is.

3. other Aspects of Cognition:

Control processes are ways people use their intellectual powers; however, with older
adults, they seem less efficient at managing control processes, especially decision
making. Older adults seem to prefer NOT to gather and consider all relevant data, but
instead rely on prior knowledge, general principles, or even rules of thumb.

Two possible reasons of the decline in control processes are either that the
aging brain is less capable of strategizing the best use of mental ability OR
that older people do not know how to organize, memorize, and analyze
information as they once did.
The "Tip-of-the-tongue" experience becomes more common with age,
usually beginning as early as the late 65's

Why cognitive decline among Old people:

 Researcher have searched specific brain strucher appears to be especially
importan in memory.

o In short-tem memory: memory are the prefrontal lobes, located just

behined the forehead. When humans aquire new information, these
prefrontal lobes become more active. Apperantly this activity enables
them to hold information temporarily and to continue working with
the information as long as it is needed.

o In long-term memory: memory are the temporal lobes ( including the

hippocampus and amygdala) and the diencephalon ( including the
mammillary bodies, thalamus and hypothalmus). Which seem to help
tranform or encode, short-term into long-term memory.

o In memory disorder, memory loss involve damage to one or more of

these areas.

The brain in old age is notably smaller than adulthood. The elderly lose at
least 5% of brain weight and 10% of overall brain volume.

Beginning in the late 50s the brains communication process slows down
significantly. Slow down is apparent in reaction time.

After age 60 the rate of neurons death increases.

A lot of information is too fast for the elderly to comprehend: The aged
need more time simply to reach the level of cognition as younger adults.

Impaired near-range vision may speed older adults rate of mental

decline as they age, study findings suggest. According to the Researcher
Dr. Carlos A. Reyes-Ortiz (Thursday, May 15, 2008) at the University of
Texas Medical Branch in Galveston found that among more than 2,000
elderly Mexican Americans, those with significant impairments in their
near vision tended to show a steeper decline in mental functioning over 7
years. Poor close-range vision may limit older adults activities such as
mental exercises like reading and crossword puzzles and thereby
contribute to cognitive decline. he also told, a lack of visual stimulation
to the brain may affect the workings of nerve cells

New Cognitive Development in Later Life:

Apart from declining memory and other negative changes in cognition that occur with
old age, there are also some positive ones.

Many of the major theorists on human behavior believe that older adults can develop new
interests, new patterns of thought and a deeper wisdom (Berger, 2001). In old age, many
people become more reflective and philosophical and may review their life. This is where
a person remembers various highs and lows, compares the past to the present and renews
links with people. There is also an aesthetic sense that accompanies life review. Many
older people begin to appreciate nature and aesthetic experiences in a deeper way
(Berger, 2001).

Erikson finds that old people are more interested in the arts, children and
the whole of human experience than are younger adults.

According to Maslow, old people are much more likely than younger
adults to reach self-actualization, which is defined as heightened aesthetic,
creative, philosophical and spiritual understanding.

Life Review: the examination of ones own past life that many elderly
people engage in; according to Butler, the live review is therapeutic, for it
helps the older person to come to grips with aging and death; effort is
made to connect ones own life with future and past generations.

One of the most positive attributes associated with old age is wisdom.

Paul Baltes (1992) defines wisdom as expert knowledge in the fundamental pragmatics
of life.he maintains that these some features distinguish wisdom from other forms of
human understanding. They are:

Rich factual knowledge that concerns the broad topic of human

experience

Knowledge of the pragmatics of life

Contextual approach to understanding life that takes into account broader

ecological, social & historical dimensions

Acceptance of the uncertainty in defining & solving lifes problems

In simply we can say that: Wisdom involves elements of both dialectical thinking, and
the refinement of thinking that comes with years of personal experience. It does seem
that the idea of growing wise with age may be one of the benefits of growing older.
Disorders related to cognitive declines among old age:

Dementia: The word dementia is derived from a Latin term that means a state of
being out of or deprived of ones mind. It is quite common in old people.

Dementia is neurological disorder that decline in intellectual function, including

difficulties with language, simple calculations, planning and judgment, and motor
(muscular movement) skills as well as loss of memory. There is a progressive
degeneration (atrophy) of brain tissue, and the brain wave patterns are almost always
abnormal. Behavior may become unpredictable and impulsive. Because the person often
remembers past events better than recent ones, he/she seems to live in the past much of
the time.

The prevalence of dementia increases rapidly with age; it doubles every five years after
age 60. Dementia affects only 1% of people aged 6064 but 30%50% of those older
than 85.

Dementia may be progressive, static or even reversible if an effective treatment is

available. Individuals with dementia are also more likely than other people to experience
delirium.

Causes of dementia:

The possible causes of dementia can be categorized as follows:

Primary dementia: These dementias are characterized by damage to or

wasting away of the brain tissue itself. They include:

Alzheimer's disease: Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause

of dementia, which is the loss of intellectual and social abilities severe
enough to interfere with daily functioning. Dementia occurs in people
with Alzheimer's disease because healthy brain tissue degenerates,
causing a steady decline in memory and mental abilities.

According to the research of Dr_ Aamir (a Homeopathic Medical

Advisor), about 3.5 million older Pakistanis have Alzheimer's, a disease
that usually develops in people age 65 or older. This number is expected
to quadruple (4 time increase) by the year 2050 as the population ages.
 In simply we can say that: a progressive, eventually fatal disease that
begins with confusion and memory lapses and ends with the loss of ability
to care for oneself. Prevalence: 4 million people over the age of 65.

o frontal lobe dementia (FLD): caused by a disorder (usually

genetic) that affects the front portion of the brain.
o Pick's disease is a rare type of primary dementia that is characterized
by a progressive loss of social skills, language, and memory, leading to
personality changes and sometimes loss of moral judgment.
Multi-infarct dementia (MID),also called vascular dementia ,
this type is caused by blood clots in the small blood vessels of the brain. When
the clots cut off the blood supply to the brain tissue, the brain cells are damaged
and may die. (An infarct is an area of dead tissue caused by obstruction of the
circulation.)
Dementia related to alcoholism or exposure to heavy metals (arsenic, antimony,
bismuth).
Dementia related to infectious diseases: These infections may be
caused by viruses (HIV, viral encephalitis); spirochetes (Lyme disease, syphilis);
are related to certain kinds of bacteria, or prions (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease);
Related to protein particles that lack nucleic acid.
Dementia related to abnormalities in the structure of the brain. These may
include a buildup of spinal fluid in the brain (hydrocephalus); tumors; or blood
collecting beneath the membrane that covers the brain (subdural hematoma).

Dementia may also be associated with depression, low levels of thyroid hormone, or
niacin or vitamin B 12 deficiency. Dementia related to these conditions is often
reversible.

Treatment: the treatment of dementia is focused on reducing distress experienced by

patients and improving their behavioral and cognitive functioning; reducing the distress
of family members who care for them; and where possible, reducing the need for
institutionalization. The particular treatment approaches vary from case to case,
depending on the dysfunction and its cause, but there are the major areas of interventions
that must be considered:
 Cognitive and behavioral skills training for patients (for example.
Learning to use labels as a memory aid in performing various activities, such
as turning lights or water on and off).

Patient activities (for example, the rate at which thinking slows down with
age can be reduced with regular exercise improving blood flow to the brain
and social interaction.)

Medication (anti-inflammatory drugs, cholinesterase inhibitors, which boost

judgment and memory skills, which affects memory and learning.)

Care giver training and activities (for example support groups, family
counseling, telephone helpline, educational programs).

Method of loci: the learner associates parts of the to-be-recalled material with
different places (usually, rooms in a familiar building or sites along an often
traveled road) in the order that they are to be recalled. It is helpful to have the
learner imagine the to-be-recalled material to be interacting with features of
the specific locations along their journey. During recall, the learner takes an
imaginary walk through the building or down the road and retrieves the
different memorial items.

Peg method: An encoding technique that creates associations between

word-number rhymes & items to be memorized.

Improving memory requires making the effort to use good associations, such as the
elaborative rehearsal, which means creating good associations that in turn, produce good
retrieval cues and improve memory.