INS NYC 2024 Program

Poster	Poster Session 05 Program Schedule 02/15/2024 02:30 pm - 03:45 pm Room: Shubert Complex (Posters 1-60) Poster Session 05: Neuropsychiatry \| Addiction/Dependence \| Stress/Coping \| Emotional/Social Processes Final Abstract #6 Social Support and Stress Predict Learning Process Measures in Healthy Older Adults Claire Alexander, Ohio University, Athens, United States Julie Suhr, Ohio University, Athens, United States Kathi Heffner, University of Rochester, Rochester, United States Category: Aging Keyword 1: social processes Keyword 2: learning Keyword 3: memory: normal Objective: Aging commonly brings changes in cognition, particularly memory, even for healthy adults. Some psychological factors, such as stress, appear to exacerbate aging-related cognitive changes. Social support represents a potential buffer for this relationship by reducing the impact of high stress for individuals with good social support, whereas loneliness may exacerbate the effects of high stress on cognition. Previous studies have examined the buffering effect of social support on the relationship between stress and various health factors, but very few have considered social support as a protective factor for cognition, with mixed findings. None have examined this relationship using learning process measures, including serial position effects like primacy and recency, which may help to clarify the mixed findings in prior studies. Primacy and recency effects are the tendencies for words at the beginning and end of a list, respectively, to be remembered more frequently than items in the middle of a list. This study investigated the potential moderating effects of social support and loneliness on the relationship between perceived stress and verbal memory, including total learning, delayed recall, learning primacy, and learning recency. Participants and Methods: Participants were drawn from an archival dataset of 117 healthy middle aged and older adults who participated in a stress and memory study. Participants were healthy adults, age 50-87 (mean age 60.6), living independently in the community. Most participants identified as white (93.3%; 5.7% Black) and non-Hispanic (98.4%), and 57.7% identified as women. Participants had completed 15 years of education on average. Relevant measures gathered from baseline study data included the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status, Perceived Stress Scale, Interpersonal Support Evaluation List, and UCLA Loneliness Scale. We used the PROCESS macro for SPSS for moderation analyses and linear regressions when interactions were dropped. Primacy and recency were operationalized as the summed recall on learning trials of the first and last three items on the list, respectively. Results: Consistent with prior literature, gender predicted learning and memory in most analyses, with women scoring higher than men. Higher age was generally related to worse scores on learning and recall. Contrary to hypotheses, social support and loneliness did not moderate the relationship of stress to either total learning or delayed recall scores (and stress, social support, and loneliness did not show main effects for total learning or delayed recall). However, social support moderated the relationship of perceived stress to learning recency, where high perceived stress was associated with better learning recency at high levels of social support. Both perceived stress and loneliness predicted learning primacy, with higher loneliness associated with better primacy but high stress associated with worse primacy; the interaction was not significant. Conclusions: Neither social support nor loneliness moderated the relationship of stress to overall learning and memory, though learning process measures showed nuanced moderation effects that broader measures do not capture. Further studies may address the limitations of a relatively small and homogeneous sample and expand the scope by including adults with health conditions and/or cognitive impairment.

Poster

02/15/2024
02:30 pm - 03:45 pm
Room: Shubert Complex (Posters 1-60)

Poster Session 05: Neuropsychiatry | Addiction/Dependence | Stress/Coping | Emotional/Social Processes

Final Abstract #6

Social Support and Stress Predict Learning Process Measures in Healthy Older Adults

Claire Alexander, Ohio University, Athens, United States
Julie Suhr, Ohio University, Athens, United States
Kathi Heffner, University of Rochester, Rochester, United States

Category: Aging

Keyword 1: social processes
Keyword 2: learning
Keyword 3: memory: normal

Objective:

Aging commonly brings changes in cognition, particularly memory, even for healthy adults. Some psychological factors, such as stress, appear to exacerbate aging-related cognitive changes. Social support represents a potential buffer for this relationship by reducing the impact of high stress for individuals with good social support, whereas loneliness may exacerbate the effects of high stress on cognition. Previous studies have examined the buffering effect of social support on the relationship between stress and various health factors, but very few have considered social support as a protective factor for cognition, with mixed findings. None have examined this relationship using learning process measures, including serial position effects like primacy and recency, which may help to clarify the mixed findings in prior studies. Primacy and recency effects are the tendencies for words at the beginning and end of a list, respectively, to be remembered more frequently than items in the middle of a list. This study investigated the potential moderating effects of social support and loneliness on the relationship between perceived stress and verbal memory, including total learning, delayed recall, learning primacy, and learning recency.

Participants and Methods:

Participants were drawn from an archival dataset of 117 healthy middle aged and older adults who participated in a stress and memory study. Participants were healthy adults, age 50-87 (mean age 60.6), living independently in the community. Most participants identified as white (93.3%; 5.7% Black) and non-Hispanic (98.4%), and 57.7% identified as women. Participants had completed 15 years of education on average.

Relevant measures gathered from baseline study data included the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status, Perceived Stress Scale, Interpersonal Support Evaluation List, and UCLA Loneliness Scale. We used the PROCESS macro for SPSS for moderation analyses and linear regressions when interactions were dropped. Primacy and recency were operationalized as the summed recall on learning trials of the first and last three items on the list, respectively.

Results:

Consistent with prior literature, gender predicted learning and memory in most analyses, with women scoring higher than men. Higher age was generally related to worse scores on learning and recall. Contrary to hypotheses, social support and loneliness did not moderate the relationship of stress to either total learning or delayed recall scores (and stress, social support, and loneliness did not show main effects for total learning or delayed recall). However, social support moderated the relationship of perceived stress to learning recency, where high perceived stress was associated with better learning recency at high levels of social support. Both perceived stress and loneliness predicted learning primacy, with higher loneliness associated with better primacy but high stress associated with worse primacy; the interaction was not significant.

Conclusions:

Neither social support nor loneliness moderated the relationship of stress to overall learning and memory, though learning process measures showed nuanced moderation effects that broader measures do not capture. Further studies may address the limitations of a relatively small and homogeneous sample and expand the scope by including adults with health conditions and/or cognitive impairment.