Lab Assignment 8: Cognition in Aging and Disease

A researcher is interested in studying changes in cognition as a function of healthy aging and in neurocognitive disease. She studies 3 groups of participants: A) younger healthy controls (N=10) B) older healthy controls (N=10) and C) patients with mild Alzheimers disease (AD; N=10). For the task all participants are asked to name 100 pictures of nameable objects (e.g. fruits and vegetables tools animals plants). After a delay of 1 hour she then shows another 100 pictures of nameable objects where half of the pictures (i.e. 50) are new (Novel) and half of the pictures (i.e 50) were shown during the previous session (Repeated). Participants are again asked to name the items. She then compares reaction time (i.e. how quickly participants were able to name the pictures; noted below in seconds) for the Novel and Repeated items after the delay period across the 3 participant groups.

Use the following data and your online text chapter on aging to answer the questions below:
Young ControlsOlder ControlsAD Patients#
Novel
Repeated
#
Novel
Repeated
#
Novel
Repeated1)
0.7138
0.625
11)
0.738
0.6313
21)
0.9367
0.95422)
0.7251
0.6634
12)
1.0458
0.9366
22)
1.447
1.14163)
0.5861
0.5205
13)
0.9134
0.7803
23)
1.7396
1.50064)
0.6874
0.5205
14)
0.8348
0.7999
24)
1.2181
1.02235)
0.7545
0.7197
15)
0.9303
0.7544
25)
1.1695
1.20316)
0.7092
0.65
16)
0.7678
0.6861
26)
0.7843
0.67047)
0.4707
0.4628
17)
0.7994
0.7347
27)
1.1631
0.948)
0.7846
0.6431
18)
0.8703
0.7633
28)
1.2254
1.16389)
0.7563
0.6466
19)
0.752
0.6579
29)
0.7074
0.768110)
0.6436
0.7078
20)
0.8814
0.7535
30)
0.7034
0.674
Key:#=Participant number (1-10=Young Controls 11-20=Older Controls 21-30=Alzheimers patients); Novel=average reaction time in seconds to novel pictures; Repeated=average reaction time in seconds to repeated pictures

Questions:
The researcher is interested in testing whether naming speed increases as a function of cognitive aging and disease. What is this change in naming speed called (hint: refer to p. 9 in your text) (1 point)?
The researcher has used different subjects in each group though she is interested in making a generalization about changes in age. What type of study design is she using (hint: see p. 7 in your text) (1 point)? Define one problem with using this type of study design (1 point).
On average which group had the best performance for repeated pictures (1 point)? Which group had the worst performance for repeated pictures (1 point)?
If you look at the difference in performance for novel compared to repeated pictures (i.e. Novel RT- Repeated RT) this is a measure of priming (which you learned about in week 2). You can calculate priming for each group by subtracting the mean RT for repeated pictures from the mean RT for novel pictures then multiplying this value by 1000. The formula is below:

What is the priming value for young controls (1 point)? What is the priming value for older controls (1 point)? What is the priming value for AD patients (1 point)?

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