1. COGNITIVE AGING

2. COGNITIVE SKILLS  A number of cognitive skills:  Memory  Attention  Spatial  Visual  Mental Rotation  Executive Functions  Speed of Processing  Reaction Time  Eye-Hand Coordination

3. AGING & COGNITIVE SKILLS  Research shows that cognitive skills decline with increased age (Craik & McDowd, 1987).  Speed of processing (T. Salthouse)  Reduced attentional processing (F. Craik)  Important to investigate ways of improving memory among older adults:  So that they can continue to perform their daily activities, maintain their social independence, remain safe in their home, and drive safely.

4. SKILLS OF MEMORY  Skills of memory needed for eveyday activities.  Activities of daily living (ADL):  Basic and include activities such as bathing, eating and transfer.  Instrumental activities of daily living (IADL):  Complex and include activities such as home maintenance, shopping and money management.

5. MEMORY DECLINE  Craik and McDowd (1987)  Older participants perform more poorly on cued recall tasks than recognition tasks  Cued Recall tasks demand more processing resources and provide less environmental support.  Rendell et al. (2005)  Older adults had greater difficulty as opposed to younger adults in recalling the names of famous people.  Basso et al. (2005)  Long term memory diminished with increasing age.  By the age of 90 years memory performance declined significantly.

6. MEMORY DECLINE  Age related difficulties in memory:  Lack of semantic encodings  Difficulty in initiating effective retrieval processes e.g., searching for relevant cues that lead to effective recall  Possible to reduced or even eliminate age related decrements in memory performance:  Provision of enhanced encoding conditions by providing tasks that demand minimal self initiated processing and provide maximal environmental support.

7. STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE MEMORY  Mnemonic strategies  Cognitive training  Video game play  Memory recollection  Fitness training  Self Belief  Education

8. METHOD OF LOCI  Requires person to pre-memorise images of a sequence of locations.  If the information to be remembered is a list of words, the person is then required to associate each word to a corresponding location using visual imagery mediation.  This method aids retrieval of information by allowing the individual to mentally recall the pre-memorised sequence of locations which serve as cues to remember the associated information.

9. METHOD OF LOCI

10. PEGWORD  Pegwords can be used when numbered or ordered information needs to be remembered.  Pegwords are rhyming words for numbers and include the following: One is a bun two is a shoe three is a tree four is a door five is a hive six is sticks seven is heaven eight is gate nine is vine ten is hen

11. ACRONYMS  Short poems:  NEVER (NORTH)  EAT (EAST)  SOGGY (SOUTH)  WEATBIXS (WEST)