title: The effect of cognitive testing and feedback on older adults' subjective age.
abstract: Subjective age, or how old a person feels, is an important measure of self-perception that is associated with consequential cognitive and health outcomes. Recent research suggests that subjective age is affected by certain situations, including cognitive testing contexts. The current study examined whether cognitive testing and positive performance feedback affect subjective age and subsequent cognitive performance. Older adults took a series of neuropsychological and cognitive tests and subjective age was measured at various time points. Participants also either received positive or no feedback on an initial cognitive task, an analogies task. Results showed that participants felt older over the course of the testing session, particularly after taking a working memory test, relative to baseline. Positive feedback did not significantly mitigate this subjective aging effect. Results suggest that subjective age is malleable and that it can be affected by standard cognitive and neuropsychological test conditions.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , Texas AM University , College Station , TX , USA.
authors.forename: Lisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Geraci
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , Texas AM University , College Station , TX , USA.
authors.forename: Ross
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: De Forrest
authors.affiliation: b Department of Psychology , Brandeis University , Waltham , MA , USA.
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hughes
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , Texas AM University , College Station , TX , USA.
authors.forename: Gabriel
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Saenz
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , Texas AM University , College Station , TX , USA.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Tirso
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D030141:Feedback, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D012649:Self Concept
keywords: Memory; cognitive testing; feedback; self-perception; subjective age