Social Cognition Is Not Associated With Cognitive Reserve In Older Adults
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1
University of South Australia, Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Australia
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2
Flinders University, Brain and Cognition Laboratory, Australia
Social cognition is imperative in everyday functioning and impacts communication, relatedness, and quality of life. Certain domains of social cognition, such as emotion evaluation and Theory of Mind, have been shown to decline as people age. Social cognition difficulties have also been linked with declines in general cognitive ability, for which cognitive reserve may act as a buffer. Cognitive reserve refers to the ability of some individuals to maintain cognitive functioning and cognitively cope with brain damage and pathology. People with higher levels of cognitive reserve have been found to display better performance in various cognitive domains. Investigating links between social cognition and cognitive reserve could help elucidate neural mechanisms of cognitive reserve and aid development of behavioural tests to track brain health in late adulthood. 97 cognitively-intact older adults aged 60 to 85 years were administered tests to assess whether social cognition, measured by The Awareness of Social Inference Test (TASIT; with an Emotion Evaluation subtest and two Social Inference subtests measuring Theory of Mind), was associated with age, sex, and cognitive reserve (as indexed by the Lifetime of Experiences Questionnaire). The Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence was used to control for general cognitive ability. In line with previous studies, age was negatively correlated with all TASIT subtests. Females performed better than males on Emotion Evaluation, which is consistent with previous literature, and only one Social Inference subtest, indicating that a female advantage may not extend to all aspects of social cognition. No association was found between any TASIT subtest and cognitive reserve. This suggests that social cognition may be a cognitive reserve free measure of ability and is perhaps more directly associated with age-related declines in neural functioning, regardless of general cognitive performance.
Keywords:
Cognitive Reserve,
Theory of Mind,
older adults,
general cognitive ability,
emotion evaluation
Conference:
XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII), Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 27 Jul - 31 Jul, 2014.
Presentation Type:
Poster
Topic:
Emotional and Social Processes
Citation:
Lavrencic
L,
Kurylowicz
L,
Kohler
M,
Churches
O and
Keage
H
(2015). Social Cognition Is Not Associated With Cognitive Reserve In Older Adults.
Conference Abstract:
XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII).
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2015.217.00303
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Received:
19 Feb 2015;
Published Online:
24 Apr 2015.
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Correspondence:
Miss. Louise Lavrencic, University of South Australia, Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Adelaide, Australia, louise.lavrencic@mymail.unisa.edu.au