A mixed-methods investigation of young and older adults' strategies during age-sensitive visual working memory: co-developing a novel strategy trainin

Populations are rapidly ageing and research which helps to foster healthy ageing is urgently required. 'Cognition' is the processes involved in thinking and acquiring knowledge (e.g., attention, memory). Short-term ('working') memory holds small amounts of information in mind, moment-to-moment, which can be used to carry out important cognitive tasks in everyday life. Visual working memory allows us to maintain a limited amount of visual information temporarily, but this ability declines with age. Importantly, declines in visual working memory could hinder everyday functions such as identifying a face or safely driving a car. However, using efficient strategies could potentially help to boost the amount of information we can store in visual working memory. One potential strategy is using visual semantics, that is, familiarity and meaning, to help process novel information. For example, if you notice a person resembles someone familiar, you would be better able to identify them later. Using effective strategies during working memory tasks could benefit independence and quality of life in older age, and help to slow or prevent cognitive impairment.
This project will develop understanding of the relationships amongst ageing, strategy use, cognitive performance, and brain functioning. Study 1 will comprise an experimental investigation of the behavioural and neural (EEG) effects of young and older adults' strategies on visual working memory capacity. Based on this new knowledge, in Study 2, we will co-design a novel strategy training protocol with community-based older adults. In Study 3, via a pilot randomised controlled trial, we will investigate the potential effectiveness of the intervention for boosting older adults' visual working memory capacity.