Sustained attention is the ability to maintain focus on a task over time. However, sustained attention tasks often engage other cognitive processes such as response inhibition. Despite these inhibitory demands and age differences in inhibitory control, older adults often outperform young adults on sustained attention tasks. The present study aimed to further our understanding of the relationship between sustained attention and inhibitory control and how this is affected by age. To this end, we used two versions of the Gradual-Onset Continuous Performance Task, which typically includes gradual transitions between frequent "go" stimuli and infrequent "no-go" stimuli. We manipulated inhibitory demands by including a 90% go condition, which encourages habitual responding, and a 10% go condition, which reduces inhibitory demands. We also interspersed mind-wandering probes and included separate measures of inhibitory control (stop-signal and go/no-go tasks) to relate to Gradual-Onset Continuous Performance Task performance. Both older and younger adults showed better sustained attention when inhibitory demands were minimized, but older adults outperformed younger adults in both conditions, showing higher A' scores and less reaction time variability. Younger adults also showed more vigilance decline over time and reported more mind-wandering. Gradual-Onset Continuous Performance Task performance correlated with both stop-signal and go/no-go tasks, indicating a role for individual differences in response inhibition. These findings suggest that sustained attention is not only preserved but can also be superior in older adults. Maintained vigilance may help offset age-related declines in response inhibition and processing speed, supporting everyday functions such as driving, at least over relatively short periods. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Storytelling is a vital aspect of language processing requiring successful integration of characters, events, and actions. Cohesive stories include the necessary information to transition between utterances and convey the overall gist. Although older adults often produce more off-topic speech, it is unclear how age affects narrative organization across discourse contexts. Additionally, broader cognitive declines in aging, like differences in executive function, may contribute to discourse. The present study examined discourse using computational speech graph analyses in 268 healthy adults aged 20-81 years old. Participants completed two speaking tasks differing in contextual support: a picture book description and an open-ended speech prompt. Speech graphs quantified connectedness by modeling words as nodes and their sequential relationships as edges, capturing local and longer range aspects of discourse. Results indicated that age was correlated with increased repetition and less connected speech. There was also a main effect of task where the picture book task elicited denser, more interconnected speech with greater reintegration across the narrative, while the open-ended prompt elicited speech that was more locally repetitive with fewer links between earlier and later portions of the narrative. Critically, age-related differences in connectedness were most evident in the open-ended prompt and were independent of executive function, suggesting a gradual shift toward more locally constrained speech in later adulthood, particularly when speech must be generated and organized without external support. Importantly, graph-based measures were sensitive to these subtle organizational shifts, highlighting their potential to complement established discourse metrics and deepen our understanding of speech across adulthood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Reports an error in "Systematically reducing schematic information during encoding differentially impacts true and false memory at retrieval in younger and older adults" by Alexa Becker, Rebecca L. Wagner and Nancy A. Dennis (Psychology and Aging, Advanced Online Publication, Jul 23, 2026, np; see record 2028-01807-001). Jordan Chamberlain was missing from the author list in the submitted manuscript. The authorship has been corrected with the agreement of all authors. All versions of this article have been corrected. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2028-01807-001.) Schemas are abstract representations that aid memory performance by providing a structured context through which memories can be both encoded and retrieved. Older adults have been shown to particularly benefit from schema support as a memory aid. Yet, while helpful to true memory for schematic information, reliance on schemas has also been shown to lead to high rates of false memories for novel yet schematically related information, as well as diminished memory for information that falls outside of an active schema. The current research sought to examine how systematically manipulating naturalistic contextualization as well as the density of schematic information present during encoding may alter subsequent true and false memory for both schematic and nonschematic information. To examine this, we systematically altered the ratio of schematic-to-nonschematic information present during encoding across four conditions in a sample of healthy younger and older adults. Overall, both younger and older adults responded more accurately to schematic compared to nonschematic targets, replicating past work highlighting the benefit of schemas to memory performance. Results also showed that systematically reducing the amount of schematic information present at encoding improved memory discriminability. Specifically, as there was less schematic information present at encoding, false alarms to schematic lures decreased, and hits to nonschematic targets increased. Additionally, when items were decontextualized from a naturalistic scene, false alarms to nonschematic lures decreased. Hits to schematic targets were equitable across conditions. Taken together, the results demonstrate that while schemas maintain a strong influence on memory performance across the lifespan, this effect can be manipulated with reduced schematic information. Such findings reveal the extent to which the pervasive influence of schemas on memory can be swayed by manipulating the amount of schematic information present during encoding and provide critical knowledge for the optimal usage of schemas as a memory support across the lifespan. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

The ability to discriminate experiences in memory is an important indicator of cognitive health in older age and a sensitive marker of hippocampal integrity. Measures of mnemonic discrimination, such as the mnemonic similarity task, have the potential to become early diagnostic tools of Alzheimer's dementia. It is thus important to understand how hippocampus-dependent memory functions interact with nonmnemonic processes to determine mnemonic discrimination performance. In this study, we investigate which features contribute to mnemonic discrimination in younger and older age. First, we found in a sample of younger (n = 93, 20-30 years) and older adults (n = 103, 65-82 years) that age impacted performance on the mnemonic similarity task above and beyond the effect of perceptual discrimination of novel 2D configurative objects. Next, in two experiments, we acquired similarity and feature difference ratings for the mnemonic similarity task lures from younger (n = 25 and n = 47, 19-37 years) and older (n = 25 and n = 47, 65-79 years) adults. Using random forest regression and representational similarity analysis, we found that the two groups exhibited unique similarity rating patterns. Finally, enriching our memory data with the feature information, we showed, on the trial level, that mnemonic decisions of older and younger adults are affected by distinct object features. Altogether, these results provide evidence that older adults perceive the differences in lure images distinctively and they may rely on different levels of representations for mnemonic discrimination. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Substantial heterogeneity in adult age-related declines in episodic memory within and across tasks and individuals has prompted extensive theoretical debate about the source of these variations. Today, many theories assume that age-related changes in the representational fidelity of memory and the degree to which a test demands the retrieval of specific details of past experiences underlie much of this variability. This special issue of Psychology and Aging presents 19 contributions from researchers from around the world that together aim to enrich our understanding of the representational basis of age-related memory change. These contributions explore several interrelated themes related to measuring, predicting, and, at times, counteracting age-related declines in memory specificity while extending representational accounts to new tasks, more naturalistic contexts, and populations spanning the adult lifespan as well as individuals with neurocognitive impairment. The breadth of coverage spans multiple research domains with rich histories in the field of cognitive aging, including recognition memory, autobiographical memory, event memory, decision making, comprehension, and computational modeling. Collectively, the diversity of questions posed by the articles and the varied methods they advance to addressing them highlight the value of integrating findings across different research traditions to develop a more unified framework for studying age-related changes in memory specificity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Prior research suggests that interactions with young children confer emotional and cognitive benefits to older adults. In the present study, we examine whether such activities are associated with reduced mortality. Using data from 6,775 participants in the Health and Retirement Study, we examined the relationships of intergenerational engagement in 2010, operationalized as reported frequency of activities with familial and nonfamilial children, to survival as of 2022. Cox proportional hazard model analyses indicated that more frequent intergenerational activity was related to survival over the 12-year period; the effect held after accounting for demographic background variables and physical health as well as overall levels of social activity. As expected, the effect was stronger among older than younger participants, but did not vary by grandparent status. Findings suggest that engaging with younger generations, familial or otherwise, may contribute to longevity, highlighting the potential value of intergenerational experiences across a wide range of social contexts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Social discounting refers to the decline in generosity as the perceived social distance to another person increases. Despite growing interest in age differences in prosocial behavior, little is known about how people's generosity and social discounting vary across adulthood under different cultural contexts. This study examined age-related differences in social discounting and charitable giving in two independently preregistered adult lifespan samples from the United States (n = 484) and China (n = 555). Participants completed a social discounting task (choosing between keeping money vs. giving it to another person at varying social distances), a charitable giving measure (keeping money vs. donating to their favorite charity), and a horizontal-vertical individualism-collectivism scale assessing cultural values. Regression models examined the effects of age and cultural values while controlling for country, collection mode, and demographic variables. Advanced age was associated with lower social discounting and more charitable donations, although no age differences were found in the total amounts given across social distances. After controlling for cultural values and demographics, these age effects remained robust only for social discounting. Exploratory findings revealed that, compared with Chinese participants, U.S. participants discounted less and donated more to charities even after adjusting for cultural values and demographics. Consistent with prior findings, higher horizontal collectivism was associated with lower social discounting, higher overall generosity, and greater donation to charities, whereas higher vertical individualism was linked to lower overall generosity and charitable giving. Findings advance the understanding of how prosociality and social discounting unfold across adulthood and highlight the role of cultural values. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Socioemotional selectivity theory suggests that a primary reason older adults have better affective well-being is due to their focus on goals and motives that prioritize their emotional experiences due to a more limited future time perspective (FTP) toward the end of life. There is mixed evidence on whether daily FTP is tied to daily affect and whether this effect remains above and beyond sense of purpose. The present study uses ecological momentary assessment data from 145 older adults residing in Zurich, Switzerland (age: M = 73.33, SD = 5.52, range = 65-91; 48% men, 52% women; all White). Participants completed up to seven momentary surveys throughout the day over 15 days; they reported on purpose at baseline, FTP every evening, and affect throughout the day. Multilevel models indicated that daily FTP was not associated with positive or negative affect at the between- or within-person level, though there were individual differences in these within-person associations. Higher dispositional sense of purpose predicted higher average positive affect and lower average negative affect. These findings highlight that the connection between short-term changes in daily FTP may not matter for many older adults' affective well-being, but older adults' dispositional sense of purpose does. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Correctly inferring others' inner states (empathic accuracy) is considered crucial for social adjustment. Older adults' empathic accuracy differs across situations, which has been attributed to situational differences in their empathic motivation. We hypothesized that framing empathic accuracy as self-relevant would increase older adults' empathic motivation and, consequently, their empathic accuracy. To test these notions, we conducted two experimental studies. In Study 1, a total of 174 older adults participated online. We compared a control condition with two brief interventions emphasizing the importance of empathic accuracy for either life management or social relationships. Participants watched videotaped target persons reporting emotional experiences and judged their feelings. In Study 2, a total of 112 older adults engaged in videotaped dyadic conversations. This enabled testing whether boosting empathizers' motivation would also affect target-related variables. The intervention emphasized the importance of empathic accuracy for well-being and for completing subsequent study tasks. Participants watched their videotaped conversation. Targets rated their own feelings during the conversation. Empathizers rated the target's feelings. Across both studies, empathic accuracy was operationalized as the correlation between the empathizer's judgment and the target's self-rated feelings. Empathizers' empathic and targets' expressive motivation were assessed multimethodically using behavioral indicators and self- or other reports. In both studies, there were no significant effects of the interventions on empathic motivation and accuracy. Links between indicators of empathic motivation suggest a shared underlying construct, which, however, could not explain variations in empathic accuracy. We discuss the challenge of enhancing empathic accuracy through brief interventions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

A recent meta-analysis by Huan et al. (2026) revealed that the aging increase in false memory was significantly influenced by some moderators (e.g., stimulus type, paradigm, and retention interval) but not others (e.g., test format and list length). The present study reanalyzed the data reported by Huan et al. using a series of new moderator analyses, which were motivated by the facts that some moderator effects reported by Huan et al. are (a) inconsistent with the prior literature and (b) potentially confounded with stimulus type (pictures vs. words). Whereas the earlier meta-analysis relied on univariate meta-regressions, we conducted multivariable meta-regressions and subgroup analyses to reexamine the moderators of interest after controlling for stimulus type. Our results showed that the effects of multiple moderators depend on stimulus type: The moderating effects of paradigm and retention interval were nonsignificant when stimulus type was controlled, whereas the moderating effects of test format and list length were significant with word stimuli but not with picture stimuli. These findings highlight the importance of treating picture and word stimuli differently when studying developmental trends in false memory. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Familiar activities may support memory in older adulthood by synchronizing neural processing during event encoding. To test this hypothesis, young and older adults watched videos of everyday activities that were either familiar or unfamiliar to their age group, while undergoing magnetic resonance imaging. After scanning, participants completed tests of their event memory. Older adults remembered less information than young adults in the young adult familiar activities. Contrary to our hypothesis, fMRI analyses showed that these deficits were not explained by age-related differences in vmPFC-hippocampal functional connectivity during encoding. Instead, intersubject correlation analyses revealed that older adults' poorer memory of unfamiliar videos was associated with reduced similarities in the spatiotemporal responses across viewers' at encoding. Specifically, young adults exhibited greater neural synchrony than older adults in occipital and ventral temporal cortices while viewing videos depicting activities more familiar to young adults. In contrast, age-related differences in synchrony were not observed for videos depicting activities more familiar to older adults. These findings indicate that familiarity promotes more similar neural processing across individuals and supports more normative event encoding in older adults when activities align with their prior experience. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Becoming aware of age-related losses and a perceived absence of age-related gains in late adulthood has been linked to poor well-being, such as low happiness. Perceived control, however, could buffer these detrimental effects of perceived age-related changes. To date, little is known about these associations as they unfold in daily life, limiting our understanding of how individuals can maintain happiness in the face of age-related challenges. Using data from a 14-day daily diary study, we investigated the relations between daily age-related losses and gains, daily happiness, and the moderating role of perceived control in 268 middle-aged and older adults (Mage = 64.47, SDage = 7.76). On the between-person level, age-related losses were related to lower levels of happiness only for individuals who reported low perceived control. On the within-person level, days with more losses or fewer gains were days with lower happiness, and these relations were more pronounced on days with low perceived control. Our results indicate that experiencing more age-related losses or a lack of age-related gains was related to lower happiness, exacerbated by low control perceptions. Thus, perceived control could play an important role in maintaining happiness when facing age-related changes. Our results also attest to the idea that an improvement in self-perceptions of aging and a strengthening of perceived control should be considered when designing interventions aimed at older adults' developmental adaptation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

This review aims to synthesize recent studies on the efficacy of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) for older adults, both overall and for depression, anxiety, quality of life, and pain specifically. Studies were included if they evaluated ACT in a trial with an older adult population, reported pretreatment and posttreatment scores, and were written in English. Studies were excluded if they only reported secondary data, had less than three participants, or did not evaluate a full ACT protocol. The Cochrane Risk of Bias Version 2 and Risk of Bias in Non-Randomized Studies of Interventions tools were used to assess risk of bias. Random-effects meta-analysis was used. This synthesis was preregistered (Prospero: CRD42022376246). Twenty-five studies were included in the overall meta-analysis (n = 1,166 participants). Overall, our results showed a large and significant within-group effect in the primary outcomes in trials of older adults (Hedges's g = 0.88, 95% confidence interval, CI [0.54, 1.21]). Significant within-group effects ranging from small to large were also found for depression (g = 0.56, 95% CI [0.38, 0.74]), anxiety (g = 0.93, 95% CI [0.31, 1.55]), quality of life (g = 0.37, 95% CI [0.08, 0.67]), and pain (g = 0.75, 95% CI [0.32, 1.19]). In sum, existing research suggests ACT shows promise in reducing distress and pain and improving quality of life in older adults. Studies spanned a broad range of countries and settings. However, confidence in these results is very low due to the within-group method used, small sample sizes, inconsistency, and potential publication bias. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Empathy, the ability to understand others' perspectives (cognitive empathy) and share their emotions (emotional empathy), is critical for social functioning across the lifespan. Although empathy changes with age and is often disrupted in neurodegenerative disease, prior research has largely examined isolated components or focused narrowly on healthy aging or specific disorders. This systematic review addresses this gap by synthesizing behavioral and neuroimaging evidence on empathy across typical and pathological aging, from healthy older adulthood and mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer's disease and behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia. We reviewed empirical studies published between January 2015 and October 2025 that examined cognitive and/or emotional empathy in healthy older adults or individuals with mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer's disease, or behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia. We propose an integrative model suggesting that cognitive and emotional empathy follow distinct trajectories across aging. Based on the model, cognitive empathy gradually declines, likely reflecting changes in prefrontal regions and large-scale brain networks, with this process beginning in normal aging and continuing through mild cognitive impairment and dementia. In contrast, emotional empathy is relatively preserved in aging and early disease stages, although it becomes more context-dependent with clearer impairment in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia. We conclude that understanding these trajectories has important implications for early diagnosis, caregiving, and designing targeted interventions to support empathic functioning in older adults and individuals with neurodegenerative diseases. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Internet use by community-dwelling older adults can increase their feelings of social connectedness and alleviate feelings of loneliness. Older adults' Internet use is increasing, yet some older adults still lack confidence in their ability to use the Internet. A lack of confidence may negatively affect their Internet use. This study incorporates constructs from technology acceptance models and theories to examine the role of online self-efficacy as a mediating process linking five sources of technical support (i.e., customer support, themselves, family, friends, and online sources), attitudes, and facilitating conditions to older adults' daily Internet use. Understanding these mechanistic relationships is likely to inform older adults' use and adoption of other existing and emerging technologies. Data were collected, during October and November 2017, using a cross-sectional online survey with a representative sample of U.S. Internet users, aged 65 years and older (N = 1,169). Path analysis modeling results show that the effects of fixing a technical problem themselves, finding technology help online, getting technical support from family, attitude toward new technology, facilitating conditions, and hedonic motivation on daily Internet use were mediated by online self-efficacy. Study results provide insights for designing interventions that can enhance older adults' online self-efficacy and increase their daily Internet use. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).