Examination of the bidirectional influences of leisure activity and memory in old people: A dissociative effect on episodic memory

The present study examined the relationships between different types of social and cognitive activities and different types of episodic and semantic memory. A total of 794 adult men and women from five age cohorts (aged 65–85 at baseline), participating in the longitudinal Betula project on ageing,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The British journal of psychology 2014-08, Vol.105 (3), p.382-398
Main Authors: Mousavi-Nasab, S.-M.-Hossein, Kormi-Nouri, Reza, Nilsson, Lars-Göran
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult. Elderly
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Aging
Biological and medical sciences
Cognition
Cognition & reasoning
cognitive activity
Developmental psychology
Episodic memory
Female
Forecasts
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Heart diseases
Human
Humans
Hypertension
Learning. Memory
Leisure
Leisure Activities
Longitudinal studies
Male
Memory
Memory - physiology
Memory, Episodic
Mental Recall - physiology
Older people
Prospective Studies
Psychology
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Psykologi
Recall
Recognition (Psychology) - physiology
Semantic memory
Semantics
Social activities
social activity
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Summary:The present study examined the relationships between different types of social and cognitive activities and different types of episodic and semantic memory. A total of 794 adult men and women from five age cohorts (aged 65–85 at baseline), participating in the longitudinal Betula project on ageing, memory, and health, were included in the study. The participants were studied over 10 years (1995–2005) in three waves. Recognition and recall were used as episodic memory tasks, and knowledge and verbal fluency as semantic memory tasks. The results, after controlling for age, gender, education, and some diseases, including heart disease and hypertension, as covariates, showed unidirectional effects of social activity on episodic memory on all test occasions (β = .10). Also, episodic memory predicted change in cognitive activity for all test waves (β = .21–.22). Findings suggest that social activity can be seen as protective factor against memory decline. It also seems that episodic memory performance is a predictor of cognitive activity in old people. However, the opposite direction does not hold true.
ISSN:0007-1269
2044-8295
2044-8295
DOI:10.1111/bjop.12044