WHAT WE WANTED TO DISCOVER (PROJECT GOALS)

We wanted to learn more about how and why older adults (60+) vary in their attention and memory abilities. We also wanted to see how older adults differed in these abilities as compared to younger adults.

We defined the following project goals:

Goal 1. Discovery of older adults’ behavior, experience, and patterns while completing attention and memory tasks.

Goal 2. Test how older adults vary in their ability to focus on a task, recall important task details, and minimize overall distraction. How do they compare on average to younger adults?

Goal 3. Listen to older adults on how they felt performing the tasks. What were their concerns regarding their quality of life in the context of attention and memory?

OUR PLAN FOR SUCCESS (RESEARCH STRATEGY)

We decided on a mixed-methods approach that identified the following research milestones:

Milestone 1: Ideate designs for measuring attention and memory. Create prototypes of various study designs. Iterate to determine the best study design prior to data collection.

Milestone 2: Organize recruitment strategies for younger and older adults.

Milestone 3: Run the finalized study design.

OUR MAIN CHALLENGES

RECRUITMENT STRATEGY. Several important issues needed to be considered when recruiting older adults, such as mobility, health status, vehicle access, and digital literacy. In collaboration with health organizations, we came up with a series of strategies to address each of these issues. As a result, we were able to successfully recruit older adults from different communities throughout the St. Louis area.

VARIABLE DATA. Data from older adult populations varies quite highly across individuals. The team ideated various study designs to best address this issue. The solution we came to was to have each participant complete all tasks for the study in a single (albeit long) testing session. This would greatly reduce the variance we would observe across the different tasks.

HOW WE EXECUTED OUR STRATEGY (RESEARCH PROCESS)

We chose a mixed-methods approach involving attention and memory computer tasks, surveys, and interviews.

The Attention & Memory Tasks

We programmed the attention tasks such that they would be highly accessible for the average participant. The tasks required participants to provide a vocal response upon seeing a stimulus (e.g., a color word) on a computer screen. Memory tasks (e.g., digit span) were interleaved throughout the study.

Surveys

We administered surveys at the beginning and end of the study. The surveys were divided into two categories – one that helped us to characterize the sample (e.g., education level, gender, health status, etc.), and one that provided a general measure of cognitive ability. Without a doubt, these surveys were CRITICAL to the study design – they identified who might be more likely to be experiencing overall attention and memory difficulties.

Interviews

At the end of the study, we interviewed participants to see how they felt about their task performance, their thoughts on their own attention and memory abilities, and any concerns they had regarding their overall health and aging in general. All interviews were approximately 10 minutes long and 1:1.

Analysis

For the attention tasks, I analyzed the response times and error rates via linear mixed models. For the memory tasks, all surveys were scored and correlated with attention measures. I created a visual breakdown of the results to show the team emerging patterns of behavior across the different measures. I also looked at demographic factors (e.g., gender, age, education level, etc.) to see what impact they had on our discoveries.

TOOLS WE USED

Tools – Multivariate Testing, , Participant Recruitment, Interviews, Prototyping, Iterating, Data Analysis, Data Visualization

WHAT WE LEARNED (DISCOVERIES)

Insight 1: Older and younger adults both use specific features (e.g., color) to help them learn about when to expect conflicting information. This aspect of attention does not differ by age group.

Insight 2: Older adults relax their attention whenever possible. This leads to steep declines in performance when conflicting information appears unexpectedly. Interestingly, however, younger adults do not experience these lapses in attention.

Insight 3: Older adults with memory difficulties experience far greater challenges when confronted with conflicting information. More specifically, the less memory capacity they have, the more easily distracted they are from the task.

Ultimately, the team discovered that older adults differ from younger adults in the types of attention they can easily use.

THE IMPACT WE HAD

Our research process led to this being a highly comprehensive study on aging differences in attention and memory. Our discoveries hold great promise for developing cognitive measures that are easy-to-implement, accurate assessments of attention and memory. Direct applications using such tasks in clinical populations may help to differentiate those who are experiencing healthy aging from those who are not.