| Poster | Poster Session 02 Program Schedule
02/15/2024
08:00 am - 09:15 am
Room: Shubert Complex (Posters 1-60)
Poster Session 02: Aging | MCI | Neurodegenerative Disease - PART 1
Final Abstract #39
A novel scoring protocol for assessing unprompted imaginative thinking in young and older adults
Mariam Hovhannisyan, University of Arizona, Tucson, United States
Matthew Grilli, University of Arizona, Tucson, United States
Jessica Andrews-Hanna, University of Arizona, Tucson, United States
Category: Aging
Keyword 1: aging (normal)
Keyword 2: memory: normal
Keyword 3: cognitive neuroscience
Objective:
Our recent framework proposes that distinct component processes referred to as the “mind’s eye” (concrete, image based-form of imagination) and the “mind’s mind” (abstract, verbal-based form of imagination) are supported by subsystems of the default network and unite to form the basis of imaginative thinking (Andrews-Hanna & Grilli, 2021; Raffaelli et al., 2020). Here, we aim to uncover age-related differences in cognitive biases for these different forms of imagination by employing our recently developed scoring protocol (Hovhannisyan et al., in prep) to a “think aloud” rest paradigm designed to capture unprompted imaginative thinking. We explored two alternative hypotheses supported by the literature. On the one hand, a higher mind’s mind vs. mind’s eye bias might be observed in older adults considering our previous work (Hovhannisyan et al., in prep) showing such age-differences during autobiographical remembering. On the other hand, similar cognitive biases might be observed across age groups, considering our recent review of the literature noting overall weak evidence for age-related differences in default network subsystem functional engagement in normal versus pathological aging (Andrews-Hanna et al., 2019).
Participants and Methods:
Participants were 43 young and 44 older adults, neuropsychologically screened to ensure normal cognition. Participants completed the “think aloud” paradigm at home over Zoom Health. They were asked to speak aloud the contents of their conscious experience across a ten minute unprompted rest period. To capture the distinction between the mind’s eye and mind’s mind, we applied our novel scoring protocol to transcribed audio files.
Results:
A two-way Group (young vs older) by Imagination type (mind’s eye vs. mind’s mind) mixed analysis of variance revealed that there was an overall bias towards the mind’s eye during a period of unprompted imaginative thinking, F(1,170) = 7.65, p = 0.006. However, there was not a significant main effect of age group on overall content generated, F(1,170) = 0.025, p =.88, and there was no significant interaction between age group and the relative use of the mind’s eye and mind’s mind, F(1,170) = 0.74, p = 0.39. A follow-up Bayesian mixed analysis of variance revealed substantial evidence of no overall age group difference, BF10 = .19, and no interaction between age group and imagination type, BF10 = 0.14.
Conclusions:
We found that during unprompted thought, participants exhibited an overall bias toward their use of the mind’s eye (versus mind’s mind) and that this bias did not significantly vary between age groups. These findings align with prior research comparing default network engagement between young and older adults during prompted versus unprompted imaginative thinking. If replicated, these preliminary findings suggest that the context with which imaginative thoughts are assessed (e.g., deliberately retrieving past events versus thinking in an experimentally unconstrained manner) might contribute to different manifestations of the mind’s eye and mind’s mind in older adults compared to young adults, which might have implications for understanding and testing normal and abnormal aging.
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