Social relatedness and perceptual performance among the aged

The author investigated whether the ability to shift mental sets as defined by Goldstein and Scheerer (1941) and measured by the ability to detect sequence changes in a film, is associated with the degree of social relatedness that older people have with society. 76 subjects, 16 men and 60 women, aged 60 to 88 yr., were administered a questionnaire whose items were designed to measure social, personality and demographic variables. The subjects were also participants in a perceptual task. The trend of the findings suggests a relationship between efficiency of psychological functioning on a perceptual task and degree of interpersonal relatedness.