Assessing Cognitive Capacity and Mental Effort Trends In Young and Aging Populations
Aging is often associated with various forms of cognitive decline, but researchers are still studying the specific trends associated with mental capability in aging populations. For example, mental sharpness is no longer viewed as a simple one-dimensional factor, but rather a measurement of multiple mental indicators (such as reaction time, independence, and ability to multitask). The relative mental cost associated with certain decision-making scenarios was recently observed in both young and old participants in incentivizing and disincentivizing situations. The experiment was conducted with the Cog-Ed paradigm, used to determine the relationship between cognitive effort and everyday mental upkeep. Through this system, participants then completed various tasks of increasing mental difficulty, while researchers observed the subject input of their cognitive effort.
The Cog-Ed paradigm helped to show contradicting decision-making scenarios in young and old participants in incentivized and disincentivized environments. While older participants were shown to have more discounting when it came to cognitive effort, they were also shown to have more cognitive effort devoted to tasks requiring increased mental commitment. Consequently, this outcome supports the theory that elderly people are less likely to engage in mentally demanding tasks due to the high cognitive input required. Thus, it seems likely that the incentivization of a rewards system is much more compelling to the general public than a system where participants are forced to prevent further loss. There still needs to be additional research done on the biological mechanisms responsible for increased cognitive effort in elderly people.
These experiment results lined up with similar cognitive results from participants in similar mental capacity assessments conducted in the past. Those participants who needed less cognitive effort in certain decision-making scenarios in the incentivized environment were found to be more likely to engage in mentally strenuous activities. On the other hand, those who needed less cognitive effort for the scenarios in the disincentivized environment were less likely to engage in mentally strenuous activities, in large part due to the lack of a reward system for the cognitive demands.
Author: Abhinav Katyal
Reference: Crawford JL, English T, Braver TS. Cognitive Effort-Based Decision-Making Across Experimental and Daily Life Indices in Yunger and Older Adults. The journals of gerontology Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences. 2022;78(1):40-50. doi:https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbac167
