INT’L. J. AGING AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT, Vol. 78(1) 67-84, 2014
HOW JAPANESE ADULTS PERCEIVE MEMORY CHANGE WITH AGE: MIDDLE-AGED ADULTS WITH MEMORY PERFORMANCE AS HIGH AS YOUNG ADULTS EVALUATE THEIR MEMORY ABILITIES AS LOW AS OLDER ADULTS*
HIKARI KINJO Meiji Gakuin University, Japan HIROYUKI SHIMIZU Kobe Gakuin University, Japan
ABSTRACT
The characteristics of self-referent beliefs about memory change with age. The relationship between beliefs and memory performance of three age groups of Japanese adults was investigated. The beliefs measured by the Personal Beliefs about Memory Instrument (Lineweaver & Hertzog, 1998) differed among the age groups and between sexes. In most scales, the ratings by middle-aged adults were as low as those by older adults, which were lower than those by young adults. Women perceived their memory abilities as lower than men’s, with no interaction between age and sex, suggesting the difference remains across the lifespan. For middle-aged adults, the better they performed in cued-recall, free recall, and recognition, the lower they evaluated their memory self-efficacy, while few relationships were found for other groups. Our results suggest that cognitive beliefs change with age and that investigating the beliefs of the middle-aged adults is indispensable to elucidate the transition of beliefs.
*This research was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers 21530769, 24530920. 67 Ó 2014, Baywood Publishing Co., Inc. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2190/AG.78.1.e http://baywood.com
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Despite the unprecedented acceleration of aging in Japan, little research has been conducted to explore the beliefs of Japanese adults about cognitive aging: how the Japanese perceive and what they believe about cognitive aging in general, their own cognitive aging, and most importantly, how these perceptions and beliefs relate to their own cognitive performance. Since the early 21st century, Japan has been facing the aging of society on a scale unlike that any country has ever experienced. The total number of people 65 or older was the highest ever in 2011 at over 29 million, which is 23.3% of the population. The number will continue to grow and is estimated to reach 40.5% in 2055 (Japanese Cabinet Office, 2010). Thus, Japanese society urgently needs to figure out how to help older adults retain healthy cognitive abilities and a better quality of lives on their own. As reviewed, beliefs about cognition are one of the most important core self-concepts of metacognition, which, some studies suggest, relate to one’s cognitive activities and performance (Hertzog & Hultsch, 2000; Hertzog, McGuire, & Lineweaver, 1998; Jopp & Hertzog, 2007; Lachman & Andreoletti, 2006). Beyond the intrinsic value in clarifying the Japanese people’s beliefs about cognitive change with age, this kind of study could shed some light on the cross-cultural similarities and differences in one’s self-images. This is because “significantly less research on self-images has been conducted outside of North America, particularly in East Asian cultures” (Heine, Lehman, Markus, & Kitayama, 1999, p. 766). In their review paper, Heine et al. (1999) warned against sweeping generalization of self-images rooted mainly in research in the North American culture. When carefully examining the empirical literature on Japanese culture, as a representative of East Asian cultures, they found scant evidence for a need for positive self-regard among Japanese and indicated that a self-critical focus is more characteristic of Japanese. While they focused on the positive self-regard, to our knowledge little research has been conducted to compare the self-beliefs on cognitive aging across cultures. Hertzog and Hultsch (2000) differentiate cognitive beliefs into two classes: (a) general beliefs (that they called “implicit theories of cognition”), which reflect largely unconscious and untested beliefs about the nature of cognitive functioning and include central characteristics such as its developmental course, and (b) self-referent beliefs, which consist of an individual’s beliefs about the efficacy, control, and perceived changes of their own cognitive functioning. Although these beliefs are interrelated (Lineweaver & Hertzog, 1998), several studies report that the latter beliefs, especially beliefs about the self-efficacy of cognition, affect not only cognitive performance but also other aspects of behavior, such as the use of effective encoding strategies to learn new things (Hertzog et al., 1998; Lachman & Andreoletti, 2006), and would be a possible mediator of the interactions between activities and cognitive aging (Jopp & Hertzog, 2007). Jopp and Hertzog (2007) support the importance of self-referent beliefs, particularly cognitive self-efficacy, because the beliefs tap motivational and volitional forces at play in the context of cognitive challenges.
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Because memory loss is one of the most critical cognitive challenges for older adults, it is important for them to retain healthy memory self-efficacy (MSE) beliefs. Several studies on beliefs about one’s memory show a positive relationship to memory performance (Berry, 1999; Hertzog & Hultsch, 2000; Hertzog, Lineweaver, & McGuire, 1999), though other studies suggest no strong relationships between them. Beaudoin and Desrichard (2011) conducted a metaanalysis to evaluate the effect size of the relationship between MSE and memory performance in healthy adults. Although their random-effects model analysis of data from 107 relevant studies (673 effect sizes) indicated a low but significant weighted mean correlation between MSE and memory performance, r = .15, 95% CI [.13-.17], they concluded that further study is necessary to determine the impact MSE has on memory performance and to examine the effect of potential moderators on this impact. Lineweaver and Hertzog (1998) created two original questionnaires on metamemory: the Personal Beliefs about Memory Instrument (PBMI) to measure beliefs about one’s own memory and the General Beliefs about Memory Instrument (GBMI) to measure beliefs about memory in the general adult population. The GBMI asks participants to indicate the expected trajectory of memory over a lifespan on a graphic analogue rating scale. Their pioneering work gave us graphic evidence of what three groups of adults, young, middle-aged, and older, in the United States perceived and believed about their own memory and how memory changes with age in general. The GBMI is an ideal tool to visualize people’s implicit general beliefs about cognitive aging with an analogue fine scale. Kinjo and Shimizu (2012) investigated general beliefs of Japanese about abilities to remember using the GBMI among three groups of adults: 99 young, 97 middle-aged, and 104 older adults. There were some similarities and differences between their results and those of Lineweaver and Hertzog (1998). All age groups expect memory decline with age with the peak around 20–30 years old, a peak that was earlier than that of Americans (i.e., around 40). Older Japanese adults perceive a sharp age-related decline later in life than the other groups do, which is similar to Americans. All age groups perceive that remembering names is more affected by age than other memory abilities, which is similar to Americans who perceive memory for names to decline more rapidly than memory for faces. One of the most intriguing results of Kinjo and Shimizu (2012) is that the trajectories of multiple aspects of memory change with age for Japanese middle-aged adults are almost identical to those of young adults (see Figure 2 in Kinjo & Shimizu, 2012), whereas the trajectories of middle-aged and older Americans are more alike than those of younger adults in that they both tend to rate memory decline as starting later in the life course (Hertzog, 2002; Lineweaver & Hertzog, 1998). Kinjo and Shimizu (2012) also asked participants on what grounds they evaluated various aspects of memory abilities in the general adult population using a multiple choice questionnaire after the GBMI questions. The results showed that all age groups
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responded to the scales based mainly on their own experiences and the abilities of people around them (see Figure 3 in Kinjo & Shimizu, 2012). This suggests that one’s personal experience affects the evaluation of memory change with age in the general adult population. THE PRESENT STUDY Although aging in Japan is accelerating, few studies have reported how Japanese adults perceive memory change with age. The nature of their selfefficacy of memory has not been clarified yet. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the characteristics of self-referent beliefs about memory change with age in three groups of Japanese adults, young, middle-aged, and older adults by asking: 1. whether and how the perception might differ among the groups; 2. how self-referent beliefs about memory relate to their general beliefs about memory; and 3. how the self-efficacy of their memory relates to their actual memory performance. METHOD Participants Participants were 300 adults from three age groups. Young adults (range 19–25 years old) were recruited from college students. Middle-aged adults (range 38–55 years old) were parents of children who attend neighborhood elementary and junior high schools and their friends. Older adults (range 63–75 years old) were recruited from a community job center where they were registered for temporary jobs. Because one older adult failed to complete the study, her data was excluded from the analysis of memory performance. Each individual received about $10.00 per hour for participating in this study. The study was conducted in groups of 2 to 20 people in a quiet university classroom in Tokyo or Kobe for young and middle-aged adults and a meeting room of the job center in Kanagawa for older adults. Their demographic characteristics are shown in Table 1. We obtained documented informed consent from each participant at the beginning of Section 1. Procedures The present study was designed as a part of a larger study on metacognition. The study consisted of two sections. Both sections were conducted in one day with the young and middle-aged groups. With the old group, the second section was conducted one week after the first section in consideration of their fatigue. In Section 1, all participants answered several questionnaires on metacognition,
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Table 1. Demographic Characteristics of This Study Young
Middleaged
Older
Total
99
97
104
300
Age (years)
21.1
45.5
68.1
45.2
% female
49.5
67
39.8
51.8
Education (years) Mean SD
15.3 0.9
15.1 1.5
14.8 1.7
15.0 1.4
Y > O*
3.5 1.2
3.6 0.9
3.9 0.9
3.7 1.0
Y < O*
13.3 7.1
17.7 9.1
13.7 7.7
14.9
M > Y = O**
n
Satisfaction with health condition Mean SD CES-D Mean SD
Group difference
Note: Y = Young adults; M = Middle-aged adults; O = Older adults. *p < .05; **p < .01.
including the GBMI and PBMI, along with questions on the participant’s years of education, health condition, and everyday activities. Depressive affect was also measured by the total Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scales (CES-D; Radlof, 1977). Because each participant was allowed to answer the questionnaires at his/her own pace, the duration of the section varied from approximately one to 1.5 hours for young and middle-aged adults and from approximately two to 2.5 hours for older adults. After they completed the questionnaires and the experimenter(s) checked for missing responses, the young and middle-aged groups were given a 10-15 minute intermission. The old group was asked to come back for Section 2 the next week. Section 2 included several cognitive tasks in which four kinds of memory tasks were sparsely inserted among other cognitive tasks. At the end of Section 2, participants were debriefed on the purpose of this study and were allowed to ask any questions about the study. Section 2 took about two hours.
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GBMI and PBMI Although the original GBMI included 27 items, we used the abridged GBMI with 15 items provided by Dr. Hertzog through personal communication. The GBMI and PBMI were administered to all participants in Section 1 through a booklet. Both instruments and instructions were translated into Japanese and an English-Japanese bilingual checked the translation. We followed the procedure of Lineweaver and Hertzog for both instruments (1998). Details of how the GBMI was conducted were described in Kinjo and Shimizu (2012). Although the original PBMI contains 57 items, because Lineweaver and Hertzog (1998) excluded 9 items (Items 8–11, 16–19, and 30) from the PBMI in their analysis and reported the results on the remaining 48 items, we followed their procedure in this study for comparison. These items were categorized into seven scales: Global Memory Self-Efficacy (MSE), Retrospective Change, Prospective Change, Control, Prospective Control, and Future Control. Scoring of GBMI and PBMI Basically, we followed the scoring system of Lineweaver and Hertzog (1998). On both questionnaires, responses of participants were measured in millimeters of distance from the lower end point of the scale with a regular ruler. For the GBMI, the responses were transformed to scale from 0 to 84. For the PBMI, first the responses were transformed to a scale from 0 to 100 and then the scale midpoint was subtracted from all ratings, converting the possible score range to –50 to +50. There were few missing scores because the experimenters checked each participant’s booklet thoroughly before he/she left the room and he/she was asked to answer skipped questions if there were any. Memory Tasks Materials for all cognitive tasks were assembled in booklets in the same order. The booklet contained four memory tasks: 1. 2. 3. 4.
a digit span working memory task; cued recall task; free recall task; and source memory task with two measures (recognition and source memory).
The tasks were interspersed among other cognitive tasks that will not be discussed. The tasks were administered to small groups of participants (two to 20 people). At the beginning of each task, there was a practice session in which the task procedure was fully explained by the experimenter and participants practiced several items. After the experimenter(s) confirmed that all participants understood the nature of the task, they started and ended the task under the experimenter’s direction.
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The digit span working memory task was a listening task in which a series of digits was presented by a female voice recorded on the PC, and participants were asked to remember all of the digits and write them down in the sequence presented. Five digits were given at the first trial, and the number was increased by one at every trial up to 12 digits. The other three memory tasks measure episodic memory for words. At the beginning, eight unrelated paired words to be remembered (Time 1) were given in two minutes. After another cognitive task, the first cued recall task was administered in which participants were asked to remember the word paired to a cue word of the eight studied paired-associated words in one minute. After other cognitive tasks, another eight unrelated paired words to remember were given (Time 2) in two minutes. After another cognitive task, the second cued recall task was administered in one minute. After another cognitive task, a free recall task was administered in which participants were required to recall as many as possible of the words studied in both Times 1 and 2 in two minutes. Then, a source memory task was administered in which participants were asked to judge whether presented words were studied in Time 1, 2, or not studied in three minutes. RESULTS PBMI Scores We conducted a confirmatory factor analysis with maximum likelihood estimation and oblique rotation, which supported the five PBMI scales where the three control scales reported in the previous study were extracted as one, which we here call the “Overall Control.” All five subscales demonstrated high internal consistency (see Table 2). Although the Global MSE scale comprised three
Table 2. Internal Consistency Estimates for PBMI Dimensions Scale
Cronbach’s alpha
Global MSE
.87
Prospective Change
.94
Retrospective Change
.95
Overall Control
.90
Specific MSE
.93
Note: The Global MSE dimension includes Items 1–3. MSE = Memory Self-Efficacy. Overall Control includes items from the control, prospective control, and future control scales of Lineweaver and Hertzog (1998).
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items, the study of Lineweaver and Hertzog (1998) treated them separately as individual scales. Thus, we also reported them separately as a different scale in the following analyses for comparison. Following Lineweaver and Hertzog (1998), this article will use the term “Global MSE” for Item 1 unless otherwise stated. A 3 (age group) × 2 (gender) ANOVA was run on the PBMI scores for each subscale. Table 3 shows the mean PBMI scores for each age group and each sex along with results of the F-test for main effects. The main effect of age was significant for all scales except for the Global MSE. The main effect of sex was also significant where women rated lower than men on the following five scales: the Global MSE, Relative Standing-My Age, Relative Standing-All Ages, Retrospective Change, and Prospective Change scales. There were no interactions. The post-hoc t-tests for the main effect of age showed that self-ratings by middle-aged adults tended to be as low as those by older adults, which were significantly lower than those by young adults on the following four scales: the Relative Standing-My Age, Relative Standing-All Ages, Retrospective Change, and Prospective Change scales. Table 4 shows the correlations between seven subscales of the PBMI. The Global MSE, Relative Standing-My Age, and Relative Standing-All Ages scales correlated highly with each other. The Global MSE and Specific MSE scales and the Retrospective Change and Prospective Change scales also correlated highly. Correlations between the Global MSE and Overall Control scales were generally low to medium. To compare the main factors affecting the Global MSE scale among age groups, hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted separately for each age group. The dependent variable was the score on the Global MSE scale, while the other six scales were used as a predictor with stepwise forward selection. For all ages, Model 1 including the Relative Standing-My Age scale accounted for more than 50% of variance, suggesting that Japanese adults tend to evaluate their general memory self-efficacy mainly by comparing their ability in remembering to that of their same age group. Yet the results of Model 2 differ among the groups. The additional scales for accounting for the Global MSE scale were the Retrospective Change scale for young adults, Relative Standing-All Ages for middle-aged adults, and Specific MSE scale for older adults. For older adults, the Prospective Change scale was additionally extracted in Model 3. The results showed that although the core construct of the Global MSE is stable across the life span (suggested by the result of Model 1), the constructs seem to change with age (see Table 5). Relationship between Personal and General Beliefs To investigate how personal and general beliefs about memory self-efficacy relate to each other, the age-equivalent rating was calculated for the Global MSE
10.27**
.26
9.21**
11.24**
RS-All Ages
Specific MSE
Retro Change
Pro Change
16.19 (13.88)
–22.81 (14.24)
–12.02 (17.48)
10.08 (14.55)
–1.63 (20.41)
2.62 (19.70)
1.71 (22.64)
Female
13.18 (13.16)
–16.99 (14.65)
–5.41 (17.14)
9.58 (13.56)
5.64 (18.06)
10.33 (17.23)
9.53 (20.72)
Male
3.09*
8.83**
22.01**
5.75**
8.75**
6.74**
.52
F-test
6.94 (24.03)
2.37 (20.81) 6.11b (18.21) –1.59b (16.91) 7.37b (13.52) –15.17b (13.80) –23.55b (14.26) 16.12 (13.75)
6.91 (21.00) 1.34a (18.00) 8.40a (18.59) 13.88a (12.42) 0.29a (20.08) –14.79a (13.89) 16.58a (11.88)
11.75b (14.58)
–21.70b (14.63)
–11.64b (14.55)
8.30b (15.27)
–1.15b (21.48)
11.26b (19.32)
Older
Middle-aged
Young
Age Group Main Effect
Note: Means having the same alphabetical superscript are not significantly different using Tukey HSD post-hoc test (at p < .05). Overall Control includes items from the control, prospective control, and future control scales of Lineweaver and Hertzog (1998). MSE = Memory Self-Efficacy; RS = Relative Standing; Retro = Retrospective; Pro = Prospective. *p < .05; **p < .01.
2.63
11.63**
RS-My Age
Overall Control
8.06**
Global MSE
F-test
Sex Main Effect
Table 3. F-Tests for Age and Sex Main Effects Along with Age Group Means (Standard Deviations in Parentheses) for PBMI Scores MEMORY BELIEFS AND PERFORMANCE IN JAPANESE ADULTHOOD / 75
.47** .50** .22** .22**
.65** .43** .25** .02 .17**
.66** .51** .39** .10 .23**
RS-All Ages
Specific MSE
Retro Change
Pro Change
Overall Control
.39**
.23**
.40**
1.00
Specific MSE
.09
.51**
1.00
Retro Change
.16**
1.00
Pro Change
1.00
Overall Control
Note: MSE = Memory Self-Efficacy; RS = Relative Standing; Retro = Retrospective; Pro = Prospective. Overall Control includes items from the control, prospective control, and future control scales of Lineweaver and Hertzog (1998). *p < .05; **p < .01.
1.00
1.00
.76**
RS-My Age
RSAll Ages
1.00
RSMy Age
Global MSE
Global MSE
Table 4. Correlations between Seven Subscales of PBMI
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Model 3
Model 2
Model 1
Model 2
Model 1
.449 .626 .376 .358
RS-My Age Specific MSE Retro Change
.717
RS-My Age Specific MSE
.885
RS-My Age
.275
.756
RS-My Age RS-All Ages
.931
.207
RS-My Age
Retro Change
.866
RS-My Age
Model 2
.970
RS- My Age
Model 1
B
Model
.121
.115
.094
.117
.092
.086
.099
.092
.069
.060
.070
.067
SE B
.214
.240
.506
.286
.580
.716
.222
.658
.811
.206
.739
.827
b
Note: MSE = Memory Self-Efficacy; RS = Relative Standing; Retro = Retrospective.
Older
Middle-aged
Young
Age group
Step and predictor variable
8.824
14.821
105.024
7.660
182.522
11.795
209.974
DF
.599
.567
.507
.677
.654
.713
.681
Adjusted R-square
.032
.060
.507
.023
.654
.032
.681
DR-square
Table 5. Hierarchical Multiple Regression for Three Age Groups with PBMI Global MSE as Dependent Variables and Other PBMI Scales as Independent Variables
.004
.000
.000
.007
.000
.001
.000
p
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and Specific MSE scales on the GBMI for each participant. The age-equivalent rating represents where each participant would be, given his or her age, on his or her own GBMI developmental function (see details on how to estimate the ratings, Lineweaver and Hertzog, 1998). We then correlated four scales: the GBMI age-equivalent Global MSE, GBMI age-equivalent Specific MSE, PBMI Global MSE, and PBMI-Specific MSE (see Table 6). Higher correlations between the pairs of PBMI scales and pairs of GBMI scales than between other pairs of scales suggest discriminant validity between the GBMI and PBMI scales, as was found in Lineweaver and Hertzog (1998). When the correlation analyses were also conducted by controlling for age, sex, and years of education, the patterns of correlations between the four scales were similar to the above result. Relationship between Personal Beliefs and Memory Performance Table 7 shows the results of the five memory measures among age groups with all scores converted to z-scores. In the source memory task, each question had three possible answers: a given word was studied in Time 1, Time 2, or not studied. To evaluate participants’ ability to recognize this, if they chose either Time 1 or 2 for studied word regardless of whether the source was correct or not, we considered the response to be a hit (Hit). If they chose “studied” for a non-studied word, then we considered the answer to be a false alarm (FA). We reported Pr as a corrected-response-bias measure calculated by subtracting FA rates from Hit rates for each participant’s response. To evaluate source monitoring ability, we reported proportion correct when a participant could correctly discriminate
Table 6. Correlations of PBMI Global and Specific MSE Scales with GBMI Age-Equivalent Efficacy Scales for Global and Specific MSE PBMI Global MSE PBMI Global MSE
PBMI Specific MSE
GBMI Global MSE
GBMI Specific MSE
1.00
PBMI Specific MSE
.51**
GBMI Global MSE
.13*
.26**
GBMI Specific MSE
.12*
.34**
Note: MSE = Memory Self-Efficacy. *p < .05; **p < .01.
1.00 1.00 .85**
1.00
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Table 7. Z-Scores of Memory Measures Among Three Age Groups Along with Age Group Means (Standard Deviations in Parentheses) Young
Middleaged
Older
F-test
p
Group difference
Forward digit span
.26 (.99)
.21 (.85)
–.45 (1.00)
17.66
.00
Y = M > O***
Cued recall
.50 (.46)
.37 (.53)
–.83 (1.18)
84.89
.00
Y = M > 0***
Free recall
.56 (.76)
.35 (.78)
–.86 (.79)
98.02
.00
Y = M > 0***
Source memory
.64 (.49)
.28 (.63)
–.88 (1.03)
109.76
.00
Y > M > 0***
Recognition (Pr)
.54 (.46)
.33 (.58)
–.82 (1.16)
85.21
.00
Y = M > 0***
Note: Pr = Hit rate – False Alarm rate; Y = Young adults; M = Middle-aged adults; O = Older adults. ***p < .001.
the source. As seen in Table 7, although there are significant differences with age, the middle-aged group performed as well as young adults in all tasks except for the source memory task. Then, we correlated these z-scores with the five PBMI scales to see whether and how much personal beliefs about memory ability relate to the actual memory performance for each age group. We found distinctive differences among age groups. For young adults, the Global MSE and Retrospective Change scales positively correlated to working memory (rs = .237 and .313, ps < .05 and .01, respectively) while the Specific MSE scale was negatively related to cued recall (r = –.232, p < .05). For middle-aged adults, the significant relationships turned out to be all negative: the Global MSE scale correlated negatively to cued recall (r = –.267, p < .01), and the Relative Standing-My Age scale correlated negatively to cued recall, free recall, and recognition (rs = –.256, –.226, and –.241, ps < .05). The Specific MSE scale correlated negatively to free recall (r = –.261, p < .01). For older adults, the Global MSE scale correlated positively to working memory (r = .231, p < .05). To further investigate how much the MSE in specific memory situations related to memory performance, we conducted additional correlation analyses between
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each item of the PBMI Specific MSE scales (Items 34–57) and z-scores of the memory tasks for each age group. For young adults, the cued recall score was positively related to Word Meanings (Item 49) (r = .217), and the free recall score was positively related to Familiar Number (Item 43) (r = .220). The recognition score was negatively related to Personal Events (Item 40) (r = –.207). For the middle-aged group, the cued-recall score was negatively correlated with People (Item 35) and Names (Item 36) (rs = –.238 and –.224), and the free recall score was negatively correlated with Trivia (Item 39), Prospective Memory (Item 41), New Directions (Item 45), Communication (Item 47), Words in Conversation (Item 50), and Source (Item 54) (rs = –.283, –.215, –.221, –.244, –.277, and –.239). For older adults, cued recall was negatively related to People (Item 35) and Names (Item 36) (rs = –.238 and –.224), and the free recall score was also negatively related to Communication (Item 47), Words in Conversation (Item 50), and Source (Item 54) (rs = –.244, –.277, and –.239). The recognition score was positively related to Trivia (Item 39) and Knowledge (Item 55) (rs = .199 and .329). As can be seen, scrutinizing the relationships between memory self-efficacy in various situations and memory performance clarified that each group experienced positive and negative self-efficacy in their ability to remember in different situations. However, middle-aged adults appear to experience negative selfefficacy in more situations than older adults do, although older adults also seem to feel negative self-efficacy, especially in social situations (e.g., Communication and Words in Conversation). The consistent negative correlations between memory briefs and memory performance for middle-aged adults surprised us and immediately posed the question of why they differed from other groups. The results indicate that the better middle-aged adults performed in the memory tasks, the lower they perceived their global memory self-efficacy. We conducted additional correlation analyses after controlling for three variables, the CES-D scores, sex, and years of education, individually, two variables combined, and all three variables together. The results replicated the previous results in that the direction of relationships between the PBMI scales and memory performance stayed the same as the previous results for each age group. Again, we found the negative patterns for middle-aged adults, demonstrating that the negative correlations were not due to depressive affect, sex, nor years of education. DISCUSSION There were four major findings in this study. First, the main effect of age on the PBMI scales showed that the perception of memory ability differed among the three generations on all scales except for the Global MSE scale. We are surprised by the lack of age difference in the Global MSE scale because Lineweaver and Hertzog (1998) reported that older adults rated lower on
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the scale than both young and middle-aged adults did. Other researchers also reported that older adults have more negative beliefs about their own memory self-efficacy (Berry, 1999; Hertzog & Hultsch, 2000; Miller & Lachman, 1999). In addition to the lack of age difference on the Global MSE scale, the post-hoc t-tests for the main effect of age showed that the self-ratings by middle-aged adults tended to be as low as those by older adults, which were significantly lower than those by young adults on the Relative Standing-My Age, Relative Standing-All Ages, Retrospective Change, and Prospective Change scales. In contrast to the current study, Lineweaver and Hertzog (1998) found that ratings by middle-aged adults in the United States tended to be either the same as or lower than those by young adults, and higher than those by older adults. Therefore, relatively speaking, Japanese middle-aged adults seem to have a more negative image of their memory ability: they evaluated their personal MSE lower and change of memory ability from the past and to the future worse than their U.S. counterparts. Second, the main effect of sex for the PBMI scales showed that female participants tend to perceive their memory ability lower than their male counterparts do, and the lack of interaction between the age groups and sex suggests that the difference remains the same across the life span. The sex difference was not observed in Lineweaver and Hertzog (1998). One possible reason for it would be related to the cultural background in which women are raised to be more humble than men in Japanese culture. Future research is expected to investigate this speculation. Third, as shown in Table 6, correlation analyses of the PBMI and GBMI scales suggest that these scales were related to each other but that both scales had discriminant validity. The results were similar to those in Lineweaver and Hertzog (1998). Thus, the self-referent belief on memory does relate to their general beliefs on memory but not strongly. Fourth, the most important finding was that the patterns of relationships between the PBMI scales and actual memory performance differ among age groups. For young and older adults, there were few relationships between them. On the other hand, the better middle-aged adults performed in cuedrecall, free recall, and recognition, the lower they evaluated their general memory self-efficacy. Additional analyses on the relationships between memory selfefficacy in various situations and memory performance show that middle-aged adults appear to experience negative self-efficacy in more situations than older adults do. The results that memory performance correlated more highly with memory self-efficacy in specific situations than in the Global MSE coincide with findings of Beaudoin and Desrichard (2011). It seems as though we judge our self-efficacy based on heuristics when we think of our general self-efficacy, while we judge the self-efficacy based on concrete evidence given a particular situation and our judgment becomes closer to our performance.
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We still have to consider why middle-aged adults, whose memory performance is as high as that of young adults, evaluate their memory ability as low as older adults. The results could be influenced by several factors. One is that the sensibility of cognitive decline for middle-adults would be finer than other age groups. Although statistically the middle-aged performed as well as young adults in most of the memory tasks, their memory performance in the source memory task clearly showed a downward tendency. Much literature on aging shows that source memory is more sensitive to episodic memory decline with age than recall, cued recall, or recognition (e.g., Johnson, Hashtroudi, & Lindsay, 1993). As such, middle-aged adults begin to feel that their ability to remember is not as good as it used to be on various occasions, and this tendency might be felt more acutely by people with better memory than others. The current result nicely coincides with the argument that middle-aged adults are vulnerable to interpreting everyday cognitive failures as evidence of irreversible cognitive decline (Hertzog & Dixon, 2005). The second is the limitations of our sample: We did not include adults older than 75 years and recruited very active older adults who were motivated to participate in temporary jobs. Given the association between activity and preserved cognition these people would be expected to have better memory and memory self-efficacy beliefs. This may explain the similarity in memory selfefficacy between middle and older adults though older adults performed poorer on the memory tasks than middle-aged adults. The third is the cultural perspective. Heine et al. (1999) pointed out “selfcriticism” as one of the several characteristics of Japanese self-regard: the self-critical attitude where Japanese view themselves as incomplete and feel unsatisfied with their performance, motivating themselves to continue to work hard to make up for their deficits. Although their self-critical orientation has been encouraged since their early childhood, the orientation would culminate in the middle adulthood when they are motivated to improve their actions and behaviors as a core society member in various social situations. Therefore, it is arguable that the more successful in their cognitive performance the middle-aged adults are, the more self-critical orientation they would have. These possible factors may not act alone but probably interact with each other. These speculations must be clarified in future. In conclusion, the current study of Japanese adults’ beliefs about memory and their actual memory performance seems to suggest that cognitive beliefs change with age. The analogue scaled PBMI is a quite sensitive measure to evaluate personal memory efficacy, especially for middle-aged adults to catch their perception of cognitive change. Our limited data seems to show that the vulnerability of the beliefs of middle-aged adults originates from their experiencing transitions in cognitive aging. In order to see clearly how our self-referent and general beliefs about memory change across the life span, investigating middle-aged adults is indispensable. Our results also suggest the significance
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of cross-cultural study of people’s self-images in that we found that Japanese self-images of cognitive aging show some similarities and differences to those in North Americans. A limitation of this study is that the current data are based on cross-sectional studies; longitudinal studies are necessary to explore whether and how cognitive belief will change with age.
REFERENCES Beaudoin, M., & Desrichard, O. (2011). Are memory self-efficacy and memory performance related? A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 137, 211-241. Berry, J. M. (1999). Memory self-efficacy in its social cognitive context. In T. M. Hess & F. Blanchard-Fields (Eds.), Social cognition and aging (pp. 69-96). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Heine, S. J., Lehman, D. R., Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1999). Is there a universal need for positive self-regard? Psychological Review, 106, 766-794. Hertzog, C. (2002). Metacognition in older adults: Implications for application. In T. J. Perfect & B. L. Schwartz (Eds.), Applied metacognition. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Hertzog, C., & Dixon, R. A. (2005). Metacognition in midlife. In S. L. Willis & M. Martin (Eds.), Middle adulthood: A lifespan perspective (pp. 355-379). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Hertzog, C., & Hultsch, D. F. (2000). Metacognition in adulthood and old age. In F. I. M. Craik & T. A. Salthouse (Eds.), The handbook of aging and cognition. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Hertzog, C., McGuire, C. L., & Lineweaver, T. T. (1998). Aging, neuropsychology, and cognition. Journal on Normal and Dysfunctional Development, 5, 85-106. Hertzog, C., Lineweaver, T. T., & McGuire, C. L. (1999). Beliefs about memory and aging. In T. M. Hess & F. Blanchard-Fields (Eds.), Social cognition and aging (pp. 43-68). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Japanese Cabinet Office. (2010). Fiscal Year 2010 (April 2010-March 2011) Annual Report on the Aging Society (Summary). Johnson, M. K., Hashtroudi, S., & Lindsay, D. S. (1993). Source monitoring. Psychological Bulletin, 114, 3-28. Jopp, D., & Hertzog, C. (2007). Activities, self-referent memory beliefs, and cognitive performance: Evidence for direct and mediated relations. Psychology and Aging, 22, 811-825. Kinjo, H., & Shimizu, H. (2012). Japanese adults’ general beliefs about changes in the ability to remember from childhood to old age as measured by the General Beliefs about Memory Instrument (GBMI). The Japanese Journal of Psychology, 83, 419-429. Lachman, M. E., & Andreoletti, C. (2006). Strategy use mediates the relationship between control beliefs and memory performance for middle-aged and older adults. Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 61, 88-94. Lineweaver, T. T., & Hertzog, C. (1998). Adults’ efficacy and control beliefs regarding memory and aging: Separating general from personal beliefs. Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition, 5, 264-296.
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Miller, L. M. S., & Lachman, M. E. (1999). The sense of control and cognitive aging. Toward a model of mediational processes. In T. M. Hess & F. Blanchard-Fields (Eds.), Social cognition and aging (pp. 17-41). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Radlof, L. S. (1977). The CES-D scale: A self-report depression scale for research in the general population. Applied Psychological Measurement, 1, 385-401.
Direct reprint requests to: Hikari Kinjo Faculty of Psychology Meiji Gakuin University 1-2-37, Shirokanedai, Minato-ku Tokyo 108-8636 Japan e-mail: [email protected]
HOW JAPANESE ADULTS PERCEIVE MEMORY CHANGE WITH AGE: MIDDLE-AGED ADULTS WITH MEMORY PERFORMANCE AS HIGH AS YOUNG ADULTS EVALUATE THEIR MEMORY ABILITIES AS LOW AS OLDER ADULTS*
HIKARI KINJO Meiji Gakuin University, Japan HIROYUKI SHIMIZU Kobe Gakuin University, Japan
ABSTRACT
The characteristics of self-referent beliefs about memory change with age. The relationship between beliefs and memory performance of three age groups of Japanese adults was investigated. The beliefs measured by the Personal Beliefs about Memory Instrument (Lineweaver & Hertzog, 1998) differed among the age groups and between sexes. In most scales, the ratings by middle-aged adults were as low as those by older adults, which were lower than those by young adults. Women perceived their memory abilities as lower than men’s, with no interaction between age and sex, suggesting the difference remains across the lifespan. For middle-aged adults, the better they performed in cued-recall, free recall, and recognition, the lower they evaluated their memory self-efficacy, while few relationships were found for other groups. Our results suggest that cognitive beliefs change with age and that investigating the beliefs of the middle-aged adults is indispensable to elucidate the transition of beliefs.
*This research was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers 21530769, 24530920. 67 Ó 2014, Baywood Publishing Co., Inc. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2190/AG.78.1.e http://baywood.com
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Despite the unprecedented acceleration of aging in Japan, little research has been conducted to explore the beliefs of Japanese adults about cognitive aging: how the Japanese perceive and what they believe about cognitive aging in general, their own cognitive aging, and most importantly, how these perceptions and beliefs relate to their own cognitive performance. Since the early 21st century, Japan has been facing the aging of society on a scale unlike that any country has ever experienced. The total number of people 65 or older was the highest ever in 2011 at over 29 million, which is 23.3% of the population. The number will continue to grow and is estimated to reach 40.5% in 2055 (Japanese Cabinet Office, 2010). Thus, Japanese society urgently needs to figure out how to help older adults retain healthy cognitive abilities and a better quality of lives on their own. As reviewed, beliefs about cognition are one of the most important core self-concepts of metacognition, which, some studies suggest, relate to one’s cognitive activities and performance (Hertzog & Hultsch, 2000; Hertzog, McGuire, & Lineweaver, 1998; Jopp & Hertzog, 2007; Lachman & Andreoletti, 2006). Beyond the intrinsic value in clarifying the Japanese people’s beliefs about cognitive change with age, this kind of study could shed some light on the cross-cultural similarities and differences in one’s self-images. This is because “significantly less research on self-images has been conducted outside of North America, particularly in East Asian cultures” (Heine, Lehman, Markus, & Kitayama, 1999, p. 766). In their review paper, Heine et al. (1999) warned against sweeping generalization of self-images rooted mainly in research in the North American culture. When carefully examining the empirical literature on Japanese culture, as a representative of East Asian cultures, they found scant evidence for a need for positive self-regard among Japanese and indicated that a self-critical focus is more characteristic of Japanese. While they focused on the positive self-regard, to our knowledge little research has been conducted to compare the self-beliefs on cognitive aging across cultures. Hertzog and Hultsch (2000) differentiate cognitive beliefs into two classes: (a) general beliefs (that they called “implicit theories of cognition”), which reflect largely unconscious and untested beliefs about the nature of cognitive functioning and include central characteristics such as its developmental course, and (b) self-referent beliefs, which consist of an individual’s beliefs about the efficacy, control, and perceived changes of their own cognitive functioning. Although these beliefs are interrelated (Lineweaver & Hertzog, 1998), several studies report that the latter beliefs, especially beliefs about the self-efficacy of cognition, affect not only cognitive performance but also other aspects of behavior, such as the use of effective encoding strategies to learn new things (Hertzog et al., 1998; Lachman & Andreoletti, 2006), and would be a possible mediator of the interactions between activities and cognitive aging (Jopp & Hertzog, 2007). Jopp and Hertzog (2007) support the importance of self-referent beliefs, particularly cognitive self-efficacy, because the beliefs tap motivational and volitional forces at play in the context of cognitive challenges.
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Because memory loss is one of the most critical cognitive challenges for older adults, it is important for them to retain healthy memory self-efficacy (MSE) beliefs. Several studies on beliefs about one’s memory show a positive relationship to memory performance (Berry, 1999; Hertzog & Hultsch, 2000; Hertzog, Lineweaver, & McGuire, 1999), though other studies suggest no strong relationships between them. Beaudoin and Desrichard (2011) conducted a metaanalysis to evaluate the effect size of the relationship between MSE and memory performance in healthy adults. Although their random-effects model analysis of data from 107 relevant studies (673 effect sizes) indicated a low but significant weighted mean correlation between MSE and memory performance, r = .15, 95% CI [.13-.17], they concluded that further study is necessary to determine the impact MSE has on memory performance and to examine the effect of potential moderators on this impact. Lineweaver and Hertzog (1998) created two original questionnaires on metamemory: the Personal Beliefs about Memory Instrument (PBMI) to measure beliefs about one’s own memory and the General Beliefs about Memory Instrument (GBMI) to measure beliefs about memory in the general adult population. The GBMI asks participants to indicate the expected trajectory of memory over a lifespan on a graphic analogue rating scale. Their pioneering work gave us graphic evidence of what three groups of adults, young, middle-aged, and older, in the United States perceived and believed about their own memory and how memory changes with age in general. The GBMI is an ideal tool to visualize people’s implicit general beliefs about cognitive aging with an analogue fine scale. Kinjo and Shimizu (2012) investigated general beliefs of Japanese about abilities to remember using the GBMI among three groups of adults: 99 young, 97 middle-aged, and 104 older adults. There were some similarities and differences between their results and those of Lineweaver and Hertzog (1998). All age groups expect memory decline with age with the peak around 20–30 years old, a peak that was earlier than that of Americans (i.e., around 40). Older Japanese adults perceive a sharp age-related decline later in life than the other groups do, which is similar to Americans. All age groups perceive that remembering names is more affected by age than other memory abilities, which is similar to Americans who perceive memory for names to decline more rapidly than memory for faces. One of the most intriguing results of Kinjo and Shimizu (2012) is that the trajectories of multiple aspects of memory change with age for Japanese middle-aged adults are almost identical to those of young adults (see Figure 2 in Kinjo & Shimizu, 2012), whereas the trajectories of middle-aged and older Americans are more alike than those of younger adults in that they both tend to rate memory decline as starting later in the life course (Hertzog, 2002; Lineweaver & Hertzog, 1998). Kinjo and Shimizu (2012) also asked participants on what grounds they evaluated various aspects of memory abilities in the general adult population using a multiple choice questionnaire after the GBMI questions. The results showed that all age groups
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responded to the scales based mainly on their own experiences and the abilities of people around them (see Figure 3 in Kinjo & Shimizu, 2012). This suggests that one’s personal experience affects the evaluation of memory change with age in the general adult population. THE PRESENT STUDY Although aging in Japan is accelerating, few studies have reported how Japanese adults perceive memory change with age. The nature of their selfefficacy of memory has not been clarified yet. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the characteristics of self-referent beliefs about memory change with age in three groups of Japanese adults, young, middle-aged, and older adults by asking: 1. whether and how the perception might differ among the groups; 2. how self-referent beliefs about memory relate to their general beliefs about memory; and 3. how the self-efficacy of their memory relates to their actual memory performance. METHOD Participants Participants were 300 adults from three age groups. Young adults (range 19–25 years old) were recruited from college students. Middle-aged adults (range 38–55 years old) were parents of children who attend neighborhood elementary and junior high schools and their friends. Older adults (range 63–75 years old) were recruited from a community job center where they were registered for temporary jobs. Because one older adult failed to complete the study, her data was excluded from the analysis of memory performance. Each individual received about $10.00 per hour for participating in this study. The study was conducted in groups of 2 to 20 people in a quiet university classroom in Tokyo or Kobe for young and middle-aged adults and a meeting room of the job center in Kanagawa for older adults. Their demographic characteristics are shown in Table 1. We obtained documented informed consent from each participant at the beginning of Section 1. Procedures The present study was designed as a part of a larger study on metacognition. The study consisted of two sections. Both sections were conducted in one day with the young and middle-aged groups. With the old group, the second section was conducted one week after the first section in consideration of their fatigue. In Section 1, all participants answered several questionnaires on metacognition,
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71
Table 1. Demographic Characteristics of This Study Young
Middleaged
Older
Total
99
97
104
300
Age (years)
21.1
45.5
68.1
45.2
% female
49.5
67
39.8
51.8
Education (years) Mean SD
15.3 0.9
15.1 1.5
14.8 1.7
15.0 1.4
Y > O*
3.5 1.2
3.6 0.9
3.9 0.9
3.7 1.0
Y < O*
13.3 7.1
17.7 9.1
13.7 7.7
14.9
M > Y = O**
n
Satisfaction with health condition Mean SD CES-D Mean SD
Group difference
Note: Y = Young adults; M = Middle-aged adults; O = Older adults. *p < .05; **p < .01.
including the GBMI and PBMI, along with questions on the participant’s years of education, health condition, and everyday activities. Depressive affect was also measured by the total Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scales (CES-D; Radlof, 1977). Because each participant was allowed to answer the questionnaires at his/her own pace, the duration of the section varied from approximately one to 1.5 hours for young and middle-aged adults and from approximately two to 2.5 hours for older adults. After they completed the questionnaires and the experimenter(s) checked for missing responses, the young and middle-aged groups were given a 10-15 minute intermission. The old group was asked to come back for Section 2 the next week. Section 2 included several cognitive tasks in which four kinds of memory tasks were sparsely inserted among other cognitive tasks. At the end of Section 2, participants were debriefed on the purpose of this study and were allowed to ask any questions about the study. Section 2 took about two hours.
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GBMI and PBMI Although the original GBMI included 27 items, we used the abridged GBMI with 15 items provided by Dr. Hertzog through personal communication. The GBMI and PBMI were administered to all participants in Section 1 through a booklet. Both instruments and instructions were translated into Japanese and an English-Japanese bilingual checked the translation. We followed the procedure of Lineweaver and Hertzog for both instruments (1998). Details of how the GBMI was conducted were described in Kinjo and Shimizu (2012). Although the original PBMI contains 57 items, because Lineweaver and Hertzog (1998) excluded 9 items (Items 8–11, 16–19, and 30) from the PBMI in their analysis and reported the results on the remaining 48 items, we followed their procedure in this study for comparison. These items were categorized into seven scales: Global Memory Self-Efficacy (MSE), Retrospective Change, Prospective Change, Control, Prospective Control, and Future Control. Scoring of GBMI and PBMI Basically, we followed the scoring system of Lineweaver and Hertzog (1998). On both questionnaires, responses of participants were measured in millimeters of distance from the lower end point of the scale with a regular ruler. For the GBMI, the responses were transformed to scale from 0 to 84. For the PBMI, first the responses were transformed to a scale from 0 to 100 and then the scale midpoint was subtracted from all ratings, converting the possible score range to –50 to +50. There were few missing scores because the experimenters checked each participant’s booklet thoroughly before he/she left the room and he/she was asked to answer skipped questions if there were any. Memory Tasks Materials for all cognitive tasks were assembled in booklets in the same order. The booklet contained four memory tasks: 1. 2. 3. 4.
a digit span working memory task; cued recall task; free recall task; and source memory task with two measures (recognition and source memory).
The tasks were interspersed among other cognitive tasks that will not be discussed. The tasks were administered to small groups of participants (two to 20 people). At the beginning of each task, there was a practice session in which the task procedure was fully explained by the experimenter and participants practiced several items. After the experimenter(s) confirmed that all participants understood the nature of the task, they started and ended the task under the experimenter’s direction.
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73
The digit span working memory task was a listening task in which a series of digits was presented by a female voice recorded on the PC, and participants were asked to remember all of the digits and write them down in the sequence presented. Five digits were given at the first trial, and the number was increased by one at every trial up to 12 digits. The other three memory tasks measure episodic memory for words. At the beginning, eight unrelated paired words to be remembered (Time 1) were given in two minutes. After another cognitive task, the first cued recall task was administered in which participants were asked to remember the word paired to a cue word of the eight studied paired-associated words in one minute. After other cognitive tasks, another eight unrelated paired words to remember were given (Time 2) in two minutes. After another cognitive task, the second cued recall task was administered in one minute. After another cognitive task, a free recall task was administered in which participants were required to recall as many as possible of the words studied in both Times 1 and 2 in two minutes. Then, a source memory task was administered in which participants were asked to judge whether presented words were studied in Time 1, 2, or not studied in three minutes. RESULTS PBMI Scores We conducted a confirmatory factor analysis with maximum likelihood estimation and oblique rotation, which supported the five PBMI scales where the three control scales reported in the previous study were extracted as one, which we here call the “Overall Control.” All five subscales demonstrated high internal consistency (see Table 2). Although the Global MSE scale comprised three
Table 2. Internal Consistency Estimates for PBMI Dimensions Scale
Cronbach’s alpha
Global MSE
.87
Prospective Change
.94
Retrospective Change
.95
Overall Control
.90
Specific MSE
.93
Note: The Global MSE dimension includes Items 1–3. MSE = Memory Self-Efficacy. Overall Control includes items from the control, prospective control, and future control scales of Lineweaver and Hertzog (1998).
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items, the study of Lineweaver and Hertzog (1998) treated them separately as individual scales. Thus, we also reported them separately as a different scale in the following analyses for comparison. Following Lineweaver and Hertzog (1998), this article will use the term “Global MSE” for Item 1 unless otherwise stated. A 3 (age group) × 2 (gender) ANOVA was run on the PBMI scores for each subscale. Table 3 shows the mean PBMI scores for each age group and each sex along with results of the F-test for main effects. The main effect of age was significant for all scales except for the Global MSE. The main effect of sex was also significant where women rated lower than men on the following five scales: the Global MSE, Relative Standing-My Age, Relative Standing-All Ages, Retrospective Change, and Prospective Change scales. There were no interactions. The post-hoc t-tests for the main effect of age showed that self-ratings by middle-aged adults tended to be as low as those by older adults, which were significantly lower than those by young adults on the following four scales: the Relative Standing-My Age, Relative Standing-All Ages, Retrospective Change, and Prospective Change scales. Table 4 shows the correlations between seven subscales of the PBMI. The Global MSE, Relative Standing-My Age, and Relative Standing-All Ages scales correlated highly with each other. The Global MSE and Specific MSE scales and the Retrospective Change and Prospective Change scales also correlated highly. Correlations between the Global MSE and Overall Control scales were generally low to medium. To compare the main factors affecting the Global MSE scale among age groups, hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted separately for each age group. The dependent variable was the score on the Global MSE scale, while the other six scales were used as a predictor with stepwise forward selection. For all ages, Model 1 including the Relative Standing-My Age scale accounted for more than 50% of variance, suggesting that Japanese adults tend to evaluate their general memory self-efficacy mainly by comparing their ability in remembering to that of their same age group. Yet the results of Model 2 differ among the groups. The additional scales for accounting for the Global MSE scale were the Retrospective Change scale for young adults, Relative Standing-All Ages for middle-aged adults, and Specific MSE scale for older adults. For older adults, the Prospective Change scale was additionally extracted in Model 3. The results showed that although the core construct of the Global MSE is stable across the life span (suggested by the result of Model 1), the constructs seem to change with age (see Table 5). Relationship between Personal and General Beliefs To investigate how personal and general beliefs about memory self-efficacy relate to each other, the age-equivalent rating was calculated for the Global MSE
10.27**
.26
9.21**
11.24**
RS-All Ages
Specific MSE
Retro Change
Pro Change
16.19 (13.88)
–22.81 (14.24)
–12.02 (17.48)
10.08 (14.55)
–1.63 (20.41)
2.62 (19.70)
1.71 (22.64)
Female
13.18 (13.16)
–16.99 (14.65)
–5.41 (17.14)
9.58 (13.56)
5.64 (18.06)
10.33 (17.23)
9.53 (20.72)
Male
3.09*
8.83**
22.01**
5.75**
8.75**
6.74**
.52
F-test
6.94 (24.03)
2.37 (20.81) 6.11b (18.21) –1.59b (16.91) 7.37b (13.52) –15.17b (13.80) –23.55b (14.26) 16.12 (13.75)
6.91 (21.00) 1.34a (18.00) 8.40a (18.59) 13.88a (12.42) 0.29a (20.08) –14.79a (13.89) 16.58a (11.88)
11.75b (14.58)
–21.70b (14.63)
–11.64b (14.55)
8.30b (15.27)
–1.15b (21.48)
11.26b (19.32)
Older
Middle-aged
Young
Age Group Main Effect
Note: Means having the same alphabetical superscript are not significantly different using Tukey HSD post-hoc test (at p < .05). Overall Control includes items from the control, prospective control, and future control scales of Lineweaver and Hertzog (1998). MSE = Memory Self-Efficacy; RS = Relative Standing; Retro = Retrospective; Pro = Prospective. *p < .05; **p < .01.
2.63
11.63**
RS-My Age
Overall Control
8.06**
Global MSE
F-test
Sex Main Effect
Table 3. F-Tests for Age and Sex Main Effects Along with Age Group Means (Standard Deviations in Parentheses) for PBMI Scores MEMORY BELIEFS AND PERFORMANCE IN JAPANESE ADULTHOOD / 75
.47** .50** .22** .22**
.65** .43** .25** .02 .17**
.66** .51** .39** .10 .23**
RS-All Ages
Specific MSE
Retro Change
Pro Change
Overall Control
.39**
.23**
.40**
1.00
Specific MSE
.09
.51**
1.00
Retro Change
.16**
1.00
Pro Change
1.00
Overall Control
Note: MSE = Memory Self-Efficacy; RS = Relative Standing; Retro = Retrospective; Pro = Prospective. Overall Control includes items from the control, prospective control, and future control scales of Lineweaver and Hertzog (1998). *p < .05; **p < .01.
1.00
1.00
.76**
RS-My Age
RSAll Ages
1.00
RSMy Age
Global MSE
Global MSE
Table 4. Correlations between Seven Subscales of PBMI
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Model 3
Model 2
Model 1
Model 2
Model 1
.449 .626 .376 .358
RS-My Age Specific MSE Retro Change
.717
RS-My Age Specific MSE
.885
RS-My Age
.275
.756
RS-My Age RS-All Ages
.931
.207
RS-My Age
Retro Change
.866
RS-My Age
Model 2
.970
RS- My Age
Model 1
B
Model
.121
.115
.094
.117
.092
.086
.099
.092
.069
.060
.070
.067
SE B
.214
.240
.506
.286
.580
.716
.222
.658
.811
.206
.739
.827
b
Note: MSE = Memory Self-Efficacy; RS = Relative Standing; Retro = Retrospective.
Older
Middle-aged
Young
Age group
Step and predictor variable
8.824
14.821
105.024
7.660
182.522
11.795
209.974
DF
.599
.567
.507
.677
.654
.713
.681
Adjusted R-square
.032
.060
.507
.023
.654
.032
.681
DR-square
Table 5. Hierarchical Multiple Regression for Three Age Groups with PBMI Global MSE as Dependent Variables and Other PBMI Scales as Independent Variables
.004
.000
.000
.007
.000
.001
.000
p
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and Specific MSE scales on the GBMI for each participant. The age-equivalent rating represents where each participant would be, given his or her age, on his or her own GBMI developmental function (see details on how to estimate the ratings, Lineweaver and Hertzog, 1998). We then correlated four scales: the GBMI age-equivalent Global MSE, GBMI age-equivalent Specific MSE, PBMI Global MSE, and PBMI-Specific MSE (see Table 6). Higher correlations between the pairs of PBMI scales and pairs of GBMI scales than between other pairs of scales suggest discriminant validity between the GBMI and PBMI scales, as was found in Lineweaver and Hertzog (1998). When the correlation analyses were also conducted by controlling for age, sex, and years of education, the patterns of correlations between the four scales were similar to the above result. Relationship between Personal Beliefs and Memory Performance Table 7 shows the results of the five memory measures among age groups with all scores converted to z-scores. In the source memory task, each question had three possible answers: a given word was studied in Time 1, Time 2, or not studied. To evaluate participants’ ability to recognize this, if they chose either Time 1 or 2 for studied word regardless of whether the source was correct or not, we considered the response to be a hit (Hit). If they chose “studied” for a non-studied word, then we considered the answer to be a false alarm (FA). We reported Pr as a corrected-response-bias measure calculated by subtracting FA rates from Hit rates for each participant’s response. To evaluate source monitoring ability, we reported proportion correct when a participant could correctly discriminate
Table 6. Correlations of PBMI Global and Specific MSE Scales with GBMI Age-Equivalent Efficacy Scales for Global and Specific MSE PBMI Global MSE PBMI Global MSE
PBMI Specific MSE
GBMI Global MSE
GBMI Specific MSE
1.00
PBMI Specific MSE
.51**
GBMI Global MSE
.13*
.26**
GBMI Specific MSE
.12*
.34**
Note: MSE = Memory Self-Efficacy. *p < .05; **p < .01.
1.00 1.00 .85**
1.00
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Table 7. Z-Scores of Memory Measures Among Three Age Groups Along with Age Group Means (Standard Deviations in Parentheses) Young
Middleaged
Older
F-test
p
Group difference
Forward digit span
.26 (.99)
.21 (.85)
–.45 (1.00)
17.66
.00
Y = M > O***
Cued recall
.50 (.46)
.37 (.53)
–.83 (1.18)
84.89
.00
Y = M > 0***
Free recall
.56 (.76)
.35 (.78)
–.86 (.79)
98.02
.00
Y = M > 0***
Source memory
.64 (.49)
.28 (.63)
–.88 (1.03)
109.76
.00
Y > M > 0***
Recognition (Pr)
.54 (.46)
.33 (.58)
–.82 (1.16)
85.21
.00
Y = M > 0***
Note: Pr = Hit rate – False Alarm rate; Y = Young adults; M = Middle-aged adults; O = Older adults. ***p < .001.
the source. As seen in Table 7, although there are significant differences with age, the middle-aged group performed as well as young adults in all tasks except for the source memory task. Then, we correlated these z-scores with the five PBMI scales to see whether and how much personal beliefs about memory ability relate to the actual memory performance for each age group. We found distinctive differences among age groups. For young adults, the Global MSE and Retrospective Change scales positively correlated to working memory (rs = .237 and .313, ps < .05 and .01, respectively) while the Specific MSE scale was negatively related to cued recall (r = –.232, p < .05). For middle-aged adults, the significant relationships turned out to be all negative: the Global MSE scale correlated negatively to cued recall (r = –.267, p < .01), and the Relative Standing-My Age scale correlated negatively to cued recall, free recall, and recognition (rs = –.256, –.226, and –.241, ps < .05). The Specific MSE scale correlated negatively to free recall (r = –.261, p < .01). For older adults, the Global MSE scale correlated positively to working memory (r = .231, p < .05). To further investigate how much the MSE in specific memory situations related to memory performance, we conducted additional correlation analyses between
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each item of the PBMI Specific MSE scales (Items 34–57) and z-scores of the memory tasks for each age group. For young adults, the cued recall score was positively related to Word Meanings (Item 49) (r = .217), and the free recall score was positively related to Familiar Number (Item 43) (r = .220). The recognition score was negatively related to Personal Events (Item 40) (r = –.207). For the middle-aged group, the cued-recall score was negatively correlated with People (Item 35) and Names (Item 36) (rs = –.238 and –.224), and the free recall score was negatively correlated with Trivia (Item 39), Prospective Memory (Item 41), New Directions (Item 45), Communication (Item 47), Words in Conversation (Item 50), and Source (Item 54) (rs = –.283, –.215, –.221, –.244, –.277, and –.239). For older adults, cued recall was negatively related to People (Item 35) and Names (Item 36) (rs = –.238 and –.224), and the free recall score was also negatively related to Communication (Item 47), Words in Conversation (Item 50), and Source (Item 54) (rs = –.244, –.277, and –.239). The recognition score was positively related to Trivia (Item 39) and Knowledge (Item 55) (rs = .199 and .329). As can be seen, scrutinizing the relationships between memory self-efficacy in various situations and memory performance clarified that each group experienced positive and negative self-efficacy in their ability to remember in different situations. However, middle-aged adults appear to experience negative selfefficacy in more situations than older adults do, although older adults also seem to feel negative self-efficacy, especially in social situations (e.g., Communication and Words in Conversation). The consistent negative correlations between memory briefs and memory performance for middle-aged adults surprised us and immediately posed the question of why they differed from other groups. The results indicate that the better middle-aged adults performed in the memory tasks, the lower they perceived their global memory self-efficacy. We conducted additional correlation analyses after controlling for three variables, the CES-D scores, sex, and years of education, individually, two variables combined, and all three variables together. The results replicated the previous results in that the direction of relationships between the PBMI scales and memory performance stayed the same as the previous results for each age group. Again, we found the negative patterns for middle-aged adults, demonstrating that the negative correlations were not due to depressive affect, sex, nor years of education. DISCUSSION There were four major findings in this study. First, the main effect of age on the PBMI scales showed that the perception of memory ability differed among the three generations on all scales except for the Global MSE scale. We are surprised by the lack of age difference in the Global MSE scale because Lineweaver and Hertzog (1998) reported that older adults rated lower on
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the scale than both young and middle-aged adults did. Other researchers also reported that older adults have more negative beliefs about their own memory self-efficacy (Berry, 1999; Hertzog & Hultsch, 2000; Miller & Lachman, 1999). In addition to the lack of age difference on the Global MSE scale, the post-hoc t-tests for the main effect of age showed that the self-ratings by middle-aged adults tended to be as low as those by older adults, which were significantly lower than those by young adults on the Relative Standing-My Age, Relative Standing-All Ages, Retrospective Change, and Prospective Change scales. In contrast to the current study, Lineweaver and Hertzog (1998) found that ratings by middle-aged adults in the United States tended to be either the same as or lower than those by young adults, and higher than those by older adults. Therefore, relatively speaking, Japanese middle-aged adults seem to have a more negative image of their memory ability: they evaluated their personal MSE lower and change of memory ability from the past and to the future worse than their U.S. counterparts. Second, the main effect of sex for the PBMI scales showed that female participants tend to perceive their memory ability lower than their male counterparts do, and the lack of interaction between the age groups and sex suggests that the difference remains the same across the life span. The sex difference was not observed in Lineweaver and Hertzog (1998). One possible reason for it would be related to the cultural background in which women are raised to be more humble than men in Japanese culture. Future research is expected to investigate this speculation. Third, as shown in Table 6, correlation analyses of the PBMI and GBMI scales suggest that these scales were related to each other but that both scales had discriminant validity. The results were similar to those in Lineweaver and Hertzog (1998). Thus, the self-referent belief on memory does relate to their general beliefs on memory but not strongly. Fourth, the most important finding was that the patterns of relationships between the PBMI scales and actual memory performance differ among age groups. For young and older adults, there were few relationships between them. On the other hand, the better middle-aged adults performed in cuedrecall, free recall, and recognition, the lower they evaluated their general memory self-efficacy. Additional analyses on the relationships between memory selfefficacy in various situations and memory performance show that middle-aged adults appear to experience negative self-efficacy in more situations than older adults do. The results that memory performance correlated more highly with memory self-efficacy in specific situations than in the Global MSE coincide with findings of Beaudoin and Desrichard (2011). It seems as though we judge our self-efficacy based on heuristics when we think of our general self-efficacy, while we judge the self-efficacy based on concrete evidence given a particular situation and our judgment becomes closer to our performance.
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We still have to consider why middle-aged adults, whose memory performance is as high as that of young adults, evaluate their memory ability as low as older adults. The results could be influenced by several factors. One is that the sensibility of cognitive decline for middle-adults would be finer than other age groups. Although statistically the middle-aged performed as well as young adults in most of the memory tasks, their memory performance in the source memory task clearly showed a downward tendency. Much literature on aging shows that source memory is more sensitive to episodic memory decline with age than recall, cued recall, or recognition (e.g., Johnson, Hashtroudi, & Lindsay, 1993). As such, middle-aged adults begin to feel that their ability to remember is not as good as it used to be on various occasions, and this tendency might be felt more acutely by people with better memory than others. The current result nicely coincides with the argument that middle-aged adults are vulnerable to interpreting everyday cognitive failures as evidence of irreversible cognitive decline (Hertzog & Dixon, 2005). The second is the limitations of our sample: We did not include adults older than 75 years and recruited very active older adults who were motivated to participate in temporary jobs. Given the association between activity and preserved cognition these people would be expected to have better memory and memory self-efficacy beliefs. This may explain the similarity in memory selfefficacy between middle and older adults though older adults performed poorer on the memory tasks than middle-aged adults. The third is the cultural perspective. Heine et al. (1999) pointed out “selfcriticism” as one of the several characteristics of Japanese self-regard: the self-critical attitude where Japanese view themselves as incomplete and feel unsatisfied with their performance, motivating themselves to continue to work hard to make up for their deficits. Although their self-critical orientation has been encouraged since their early childhood, the orientation would culminate in the middle adulthood when they are motivated to improve their actions and behaviors as a core society member in various social situations. Therefore, it is arguable that the more successful in their cognitive performance the middle-aged adults are, the more self-critical orientation they would have. These possible factors may not act alone but probably interact with each other. These speculations must be clarified in future. In conclusion, the current study of Japanese adults’ beliefs about memory and their actual memory performance seems to suggest that cognitive beliefs change with age. The analogue scaled PBMI is a quite sensitive measure to evaluate personal memory efficacy, especially for middle-aged adults to catch their perception of cognitive change. Our limited data seems to show that the vulnerability of the beliefs of middle-aged adults originates from their experiencing transitions in cognitive aging. In order to see clearly how our self-referent and general beliefs about memory change across the life span, investigating middle-aged adults is indispensable. Our results also suggest the significance
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of cross-cultural study of people’s self-images in that we found that Japanese self-images of cognitive aging show some similarities and differences to those in North Americans. A limitation of this study is that the current data are based on cross-sectional studies; longitudinal studies are necessary to explore whether and how cognitive belief will change with age.
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Miller, L. M. S., & Lachman, M. E. (1999). The sense of control and cognitive aging. Toward a model of mediational processes. In T. M. Hess & F. Blanchard-Fields (Eds.), Social cognition and aging (pp. 17-41). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Radlof, L. S. (1977). The CES-D scale: A self-report depression scale for research in the general population. Applied Psychological Measurement, 1, 385-401.
Direct reprint requests to: Hikari Kinjo Faculty of Psychology Meiji Gakuin University 1-2-37, Shirokanedai, Minato-ku Tokyo 108-8636 Japan e-mail: [email protected]
