Biomedical subjects

Stanley Colcombe

Publications and source records attributed to Stanley Colcombe.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Testing the limits of cognitive plasticity in older adults: application to attentional control.

Laboratory based training studies suggest that older adults can benefit from training in tasks that tap control aspects of attention. This was further explored in the present study in which older and younger adults completed an adaptive and individualized dual-task training program. The testing-the-limits approach was used [Lindenberger, U., & Baltes, P. B. (1995). Testing-the-limits and experimental simulation: Two methods to explicate the role of learning in development. Human Development, 38, 349-360.] in order to gain insight into how attentional control can be improved in older adults. Results indicated substantial improvement in overlapping task performance in both younger and older participants suggesting the availability of cognitive plasticity in both age groups. Improvement was equivalent among age groups in response speed and performance variability but larger in response accuracy for older adults. The results suggest that time-sharing skills can be substantially improved in older adults.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Training effects on dual-task performance: are there age-related differences in plasticity of attentional control?

A number of studies have suggested that attentional control skills required to perform 2 tasks concurrently become impaired with age (A. A. Hartley, 1992; J. M. McDowd & R. J. Shaw, 2000). A. A. Hartley (2001) recently observed that the age-related differences in dual-task performance were larger when the 2 tasks required similar motor responses. The present study examined the extent to which age-related deficits in dual-task performance or time sharing--in particular, dual-task performance of 2 discrimination tasks with similar motor requirements--can be moderated by training. The results indicate that, even when the 2 tasks required similar motor responses, both older and younger adults could learn to perform the tasks faster and more accurately. Moreover, the improvement in performance generalized to new task combinations involving new stimuli. Therefore, it appears that training can substantially improve dual-task processing skills in older adults.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Age-related effects of attentional and oculomotor capture by onsets and color singletons as a function of experience.

The present experiment examined the degree to which experience with different stimulus characteristics affects attentional capture, particularly as related to aging. Participants were presented with onset target/color singleton distractor or color singleton target/onset distractor pairs across three experimental sessions. The target/distractor pairs were reversed in the second session such that the target in the first session became the distractor in the second and third sessions. For both young and old adults previous experience with color as a target defining feature influenced oculomotor capture with task-irrelevant color distractors. Experience with sudden onsets had the same effect for younger and older adults, although capture effects were substantially larger for onset than for color distractors. Experience-based capture effects diminished relatively rapidly after target and distractor-defining properties were reversed. The results are discussed in terms of top-down and stimulus-driven effects on age-related differences in attentional control.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Fitness effects on the cognitive function of older adults: a meta-analytic study.

A meta-analytic study was conducted to examine the hypothesis that aerobic fitness training enhances the cognitive vitality of healthy but sedentary older adults. Eighteen intervention studies published between 1966 and 2001 were entered into the analysis. Several theoretically and practically important results were obtained. Most important fitness training was found to have robust but selective benefits for cognition, with the largest fitness-induced benefits occurring for executive-control processes. The magnitude of fitness effects on cognition was also moderated by a number of programmatic and methodological factors, including the length of the fitness-training intervention, the type of the intervention, the duration of training sessions, and the gender of the study participants. The results are discussed in terms of recent neuroscientific and psychological data that indicate cognitive and neural plasticity is maintained throughout the life span.

Aged↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Effects of aerobic fitness training on human cortical function: a proposal.

We briefly review the extant human and animal literature on the influence of fitness training on brain, cognition and performance. The animal research provides clear support for neurochemical and structural changes in brain with fitness training. The human literature suggests reliable but process specific changes in cognition with fitness training for young and old adults. We describe a research program which examines the influence of aerobic fitness training on the functional activity of the human using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging, of humans in fitness interventions.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Exercise, experience and the aging brain.

While limited research is available, evidence indicates that physical and mental activity influence the aging process. Human data show that executive functions of the type associated with frontal lobe and hippocampal regions of the brain may be selectively maintained or enhanced in humans with higher levels of fitness. Similarly enhanced performance is observed in aged animals exposed to elevated physical and mental demand and it appears that the vascular component of the brain response may be driven by physical activity whereas the neuronal component may reflect learning. Recent results have implicated neurogenesis, at least in the hippocampus, as a component of the brain response to exercise, with learning enhancing survival of these neurons. Non-neuronal tissues also respond to experience in the mature brain, indicating that the brain reflects both its recent and its longer history of experience. Preliminary measures of brain function hold promise of increased interaction between human and animal researchers and a better understanding of the substrates of experience effects on behavioral performance in aging.

Aged↗