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Anxiety, cognitive performance, and cognitive decline in normal aging.

Julie Loebach Wetherell1, Chandra A Reynolds, Margaret Gatz

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles 92161, USA. jwetherell@ucsd.edu

The Journals of Gerontology. Series B, Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences
|May 2, 2002
PubMed
Summary

State anxiety is linked to lower cognitive performance in older adults. Neuroticism did not predict cognitive decline in healthy aging, challenging its role as a risk factor.

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Area of Science:

  • Psychology
  • Neuroscience
  • Gerontology

Background:

  • Cognitive function naturally declines with age.
  • The influence of psychological factors like anxiety and neuroticism on cognitive performance and change is an area of ongoing research.
  • Eysenck's processing efficiency theory posits that anxiety impairs cognitive processing.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the cross-sectional relationship between state anxiety and cognitive performance in older adults.
  • To examine the longitudinal relationship between neuroticism and cognitive change in cognitively intact older individuals.
  • To test Eysenck's processing efficiency theory and neuroticism's role in cognitive aging.

Main Methods:

  • Longitudinal study of 704 cognitively intact individuals (mean age 63.7 years).

Related Experiment Videos

  • Cognitive performance assessed using a battery of tests, including Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale Synonyms, WIT III Analogies, Koh's Block Design, Names and Faces, Thurstone's Picture Memory, CVB-Scales Digit Span Test, and Card Rotations.
  • Random effects models analyzed cross-sectional and longitudinal data, controlling for gender, age, and education.

    • Main Results:

    • Higher state anxiety correlated with poorer performance on several cognitive tests, including verbal and visual tasks.
    • Neuroticism showed significant main effects on cognitive change for Block Design, Symbol Digit, and Names and Faces.
    • No significant interactions were found between neuroticism, gender, and time, and neuroticism did not emerge as a predictor of cognitive decline.

    Conclusions:

    • State anxiety is associated with immediate cognitive performance deficits in older adults.
    • Neuroticism does not appear to be a significant risk factor for cognitive decline in normal aging.
    • Findings offer partial support for processing efficiency theory but do not support neuroticism as a predictor of cognitive aging.