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T Y Arbuckle

Publications and source records attributed to T Y Arbuckle.

15 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2000

Effect of off-target verbosity on communication efficiency in a referential communication task.

The referential communication task was used to see if high off-target verbosity (OTV), defined as excessive speech that is lacking in focus, negatively affects communication of nonautobiographical information. The task required 1 individual (the director) to communicate descriptions of abstract figures to another (the matcher). Out of 455 adults aged 63 to 93 who were screened for OTV, 27 directors were drawn from each of the top and bottom 15% of the range of OTV scores and 26 directors and all 80 matchers from the middle 50%. High OTV directors were less efficient communicators about the figures and showed poorer inhibitory control but did not intrude personal information in their speech. The implications of the findings for the inhibitory deficit and pragmatic change explanations of OTV are discussed.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1998

Individual differences in trajectory of intellectual development over 45 years of adulthood.

The hypothesis that individual differences in adult intellectual development reflect variation in life context and personality was examined in 132 World War II (WWII) veterans. Intelligence data from the Canadian Army M Test were available for 3 occasions, WWII, 1984-1986 (Int85), and 1989-1991 (Int90). Performance declined over the 45 years on 5 subtests but improved on the 6th, Vocabulary. Correlations between WWII and Int90 scores showed considerable stability of individual differences in intelligence over 45 years. Younger age predicted less decline over 45 years on all subtests; a more engaged lifestyle predicted less decline on most subtests, and better health and greater introversion predicted less decline on some subtests. Predictors of change since Int85 were similar to those for the whole period. Implications for theories of adult intellectual development are discussed.

Aged↗
PubMed1995

A longitudinal study of Off-Target Verbosity.

This study reports a follow-up examination of the speech of 175 subjects, aged 65 and over, who had participated in an initial evaluation of the cognitive and psychosocial correlates of Off-Target Verbosity (OTV). OTV speech showed significant stability across the 15 months of the study. The pattern of relationships among age, cognitive function, psychosocial variables, and OTV scores was similar for the two test occasions. Subjects who had experienced more frequent and less desirable life changes and had lower verbal fluency scores were more verbose. An association between age and OTV appeared due to age-related inhibition and psychosocial functioning. The results were interpreted within a conceptual model framework illustrating causal and other links among variables.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1994

Memory for spatial layouts in relation to age and schema typicality.

The hypothesis that prior experience, specifically a knowledge-based schema for typical house layouts, can compensate for age declines in spatial memory was evaluated in 4 experiments. Old and young adults explored and subsequently recalled house layouts presented 1 room at a time on a computer screen. The findings failed to support the compensation hypothesis in that schema-relevant layouts facilitated recall equivalently for the 2 age groups. Violation of a typical house schema had a more negative effect on recall of the older group. Individual differences in spatial visualization ability explained much of the age difference in performance but not the effects of schema manipulations. It was concluded that there is age invariance in the facilitatory effects of relevant prior knowledge on spatial memory but an age-related decrease in the ability to inhibit irrelevant prior knowledge.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

Measurement of lifetime alcohol consumption.

The reliability and validity of a retrospective, self-report measure, the Concordia Lifetime Drinking Questionnaire (CLDQ), were assessed with a group of 72 elderly Canadian men. The CLDQ includes quantity and frequency questions on current beverage-specific alcohol use and a series of questions about the start of alcohol use. The innovative features of the CLDQ include requiring subjects to collaborate with the interviewer in drawing a graph that represents their lifetime drinking patterns and encouraging more accurate recall by the use of salient events in the subject's life history. Drinking was assessed on two occasions approximately 33 months apart. Forty-six wives responded to questions about their husband's drinking. The reliability coefficient for lifetime drinking was .78. A comparison of the two graphs every fifth year from 1945 to 1985 yielded significant correlations that ranged from .65 to .87. Validity was tested by comparing each wife's rating of her husband's drinking at present and at time of marriage with similar points on the husband's graphs; the correlations were .87 and .72, respectively. Moderate correlations were obtained between the MAST and the CLDQ. The CLDQ was judged to be a reliable and valid measure of lifetime drinking, appropriate for use with the elderly. The longitudinal lifetime drinking patterns appeared similar to those found in cross-sectional studies.

Aged↗
PubMed1994

Social drinking and cognitive functioning revisited: the role of intellectual endowment and psychological distress.

The hypothesis that alcohol consumption affects the cognitive functioning of sober social drinkers was investigated in 140 male World War II veterans. All had been tested on an intelligence test during their army service and retested on the same test in 1984-86 and again in this study. On all three occasions heavy lifetime drinkers had the lowest verbal and nonverbal intelligence scores and moderate drinkers, the highest. Performance declined across test occasions for all groups on the nonverbal subtests. On the verbal subtests performance of light and moderate drinkers improved while that of heavy drinkers did not. After controlling for age, education, young adult intelligence and psychological distress, greater lifetime drinking was significantly associated with poorer performance on two of 17 neuropsychological measures and better performance on one measure, while greater current drinking was associated with poorer performance on one measure. The findings appeared to rule out psychological distress and lower intelligence in young adulthood as alternative explanations of cognitive deficits in social drinkers, but they also suggested that, with these factors controlled, social drinking had relatively circumscribed effects on cognitive functions. Reasons why the present findings might underestimate long-term effects of social drinking are discussed.

Aged↗
PubMed1993

Aging, inhibition, and verbosity.

The hypothesis that off-target verbosity, defined as extended speech that is lacking in focus or coherence, is mediated by an age-related decline in the ability to inhibit task-irrelevant thoughts, was evaluated in a sample of 205 community-dwelling elderly volunteers aged 61-90. Results showed that performance on four tasks that measured the ability to suppress or remove irrelevant information stored in working memory accounted for a significant proportion of the variance in verbosity, whereas performance on other cognitive measures was unrelated to it. Shared effects between the measures of the ability to inhibit task-irrelevant information and age suggested that age declines in this particular ability may underlie previously observed age-related increases in verbosity. In contrast, the contribution of psychosocial factors to explained variance in verbosity scores was relatively independent of that of inhibition-related measures and age. The results were discussed as suggesting a possible frontal lobe involvement in off-target speech.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1992

The role of psychosocial context, age, and intelligence in memory performance of older men.

The hypothesis that psychosocial contextual factors contribute to developmental changes in memory was examined using 326 male World War II veterans. Availability of young adult intelligence scores made it possible to separate the contributions of contextual variables and age to maintenance of general intelligence from their direct contributions to performance on 4 memory tasks. Being younger, healthier, more educated, more introverted, more intellectually active, and more satisfied with social support predicted less intellectual decline and, indirectly, better memory performance. Age, personality, locus of control, and extent of social support directly contributed to performance on 1 or more memory tasks. Age contributions were consistent with Craik's (1986) proposed continuum of task demands for self-initiated effort. Possible elaborations of Craik's hypothesis to accommodate contextual variables are suggested.

Aged↗
PubMed1990

Adult age differences in memory in relation to availability and accessibility of knowledge-based schemas.

Three experiments investigated whether, over adulthood, the use of schemas to process and remember new information increases (developmental shift hypothesis), decreases (production deficiency hypothesis) or remains constant (age-invariance hypothesis). Effects of schema access were studied by having young, middle-aged, and old music experts and nonexperts recall information that was relevant or irrelevant to music (Experiment 1) and by comparing young and old participants' memory for prose passages when they knew or did not know the subject of the passage (Experiments 2 and 3). In each case, schema access facilitated memory equally across age levels, supporting the age-invariance hypothesis and implying that the basic structures and operations of memory do not necessarily change with age. Possible limits on the independence of age and schema utilization were considered in relation to the conditions under which each of the two alternative hypotheses might hold.

Adult↗
PubMed1986

Cognitive functioning of older people in relation to social and personality variables.

Age differences in performance on memory measures and in subjective ratings of memory adequacy were examined in the context of 12 social, personality, adjustment, and lifestyle measures. Participants were 285 men and women, aged 65 to 93, of middle- and working-class backgrounds. A series of multivariate and univariate analyses revealed that a large proportion of the age differences and virtually all of the social-class differences on memory measures could be accounted for by contextual variables, with education, intellectual activity, extroversion, neuroticism, and lie scores (on the Eysenck Personality Inventory) all accounting for more of the variance in memory performance than did age. Self-rated memory adequacy was not correlated with performance, and although the expected finding of lower ratings by older participants was obtained with the working-class group, the opposite was true for the middle-class group. Implications of these results for understanding age differences in memory are discussed.

Aged↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Adult age differences in recall of a moral dilemma under intentional, incidental and dual task instructions.

Age changes in memory discourse were examined under conditions where participants were asked to listen to a passage about a moral dilemma: (a) for later recall of main ideas and details (Intentional Recall); (b) to propose solutions for it (Incidental Recall), or (c) to do both (Dual Task). Sixty young (19-32 years) and 60 old (60-76 years) adults participated, 20 of each age in each condition. Older adults gave fewer verbatim responses but more inferences, elaborations and overgeneralizations, an outcome which contrasted with earlier findings that older adults cannot process implied meanings. Verbatim recall was lower with Dual Task than with Intentional Recall instructions, suggesting that doing two tasks required more processing capacity, but there were no age x condition interactions with any measure. The results were discussed in relation to possible age decrements in processing capacity and possible age differences in interpreting the recall instructions.

Adult↗