The Role of Executive Functions in Object- and Action-Naming among Older Adults

Finding the Words: How Does the Aging Brain Process Language? A Focused Review of Brain Connectivity and Compensatory Pathways

As people age, there is a natural decline in cognitive functioning and brain structure. However, the relationship between brain function and cognition in older adults is neither straightforward nor uniform. Instead, it is complex, influenced by multiple factors, and can vary considerably from one person to another. Reserve, compensation, and maintenance mechanisms may help explain why some older adults can maintain high levels of performance while others struggle. These mechanisms are often studied concerning memory and executive functions that are particularly sensitive to the effects of aging. However, language abilities can also be affected by age, with changes in production fluency. The impact of brain changes on language abilities needs to be further investigated to understand the dynamics and patterns of aging, especially successful aging. We previously modeled several compensatory profiles of language production and lexical access/retrieval in aging within the Lexical Access and Retrieval in Aging (LARA) model. In the present paper, we propose an extended version of the LARA model, called LARA-Connectivity (LARA-C), incorporating recent evidence on brain connectivity. Finally, we discuss factors that may influence the strategies implemented with aging. The LARA-C model can serve as a framework to understand individual performance and open avenues for possible personalized interventions.

Longitudinal Cognitive Trajectories in Older Adults with Restless Legs Syndrome or Willis-Ekbom Disease

Background: Restless legs syndrome/Willis-Ekbom disease (RLS/WED) has occasionally but not consistently been associated with cognitive and most notably language and executive impairment. The present study was conducted to investigate the cognitive trajectories of older individuals with RLS/WED. Methods: Participants were drawn from the randomly selected, older (>64 years), population-based HELIAD cohort. Individuals without dementia and with available neuropsychological evaluations at baseline and follow-up were considered for potential eligibility. A comprehensive assessment examining five principal components of cognition (memory, visuo-spatial ability, attention, executive function, and language) was administered to the participants. Generalized estimating equation analyses were used to examine the unadjusted and adjusted (for critical factors and covariates) effects of RLS/WED on cognition over time. Results: A total of 1003 predominantly female (59.5%), older (72.9 ± 4.9 years) participants with follow-up evaluations after a mean of 3.09 ± 0.85 years and without dementia at baseline and follow-up were included in the present study. Among them, 81 were diagnosed with RLS/WED at baseline. Global cognition, memory, attention, and executive and visuo-perceptual skills did not differ between those with and without RLS/WED. However, the RLS/WED group performed worse on language at baseline by a standard deviation of 0.249, while demonstrating a mitigated language decline over time, by a standard deviation of 0.063. The unadjusted models yielded similar results. Conclusions: Our findings were indicative of a baseline language disadvantage among older individuals with RLS/WED, but the initial discrepancy tends to dissolve over time.

Pain trajectories and their associations with cognition among older adults: a 10-year cohort study from network perspective

BACKGROUND

Few studies have examined the associations between pain trajectories and cognitive function in older adults. This study explored the associations between pain trajectories and different cognitive domains in older adults from a network perspective.

METHODS

Data on pain trajectories were derived from the Health and Retirement Study between 2010 and 2020 using latent class growth analyses. Measurements of key cognition domains, including memory, attention, calculation, orientation and language, were included. Linear regression and network analysis were performed to evaluate the associations between different pain trajectories and cognition.

RESULTS

A total of 9,551 older adults were included in this study and three trajectories of pain were identified. After controlling for the covariates, persistent severe pain trajectory was associated with poorer overall cognition, memory and calculation ability when compared to mild or non-persistent pain trajectory. In the pain and cognition network model, memory (expected influence (EI) = 0.62), language (EI = 0.58) and calculation (EI = 0.41) were the most central domains.

CONCLUSIONS

Pain trajectories appeared stable over time among older adults in this study. Severity of persistent pain was an important risk factor for poor cognition, especially in relation to memory and calculation domains. Interventions targeting memory, language and calculation domains might be useful in addressing cognitive decline in older adults with persistent pain.

Combining executive function training and anomia therapy in chronic post-stroke aphasia: A preliminary study of multidimensional effects

PURPOSE

The influential relationship between executive functioning and aphasia rehabilitation outcomes has been addressed in a number of studies, but few have studied the effect of adding executive function training to linguistic therapies. The present study aimed to measure the effects of combining, within therapy sessions, executive function training and anomia therapy on naming and discourse abilities in people with chronic aphasia.

METHOD

A single-case experimental design with multiple baselines across participants was used. Four persons with chronic post-stroke aphasia received 12 sessions of a tailored treatment combining executive function training and semantic feature analysis (SFA) therapy. Naming accuracy of treated items was examined over the course of the treatment while control naming scores of untreated items and discourse measures were collected pre-treatment, immediately post-treatment, and 4 weeks post-treatment, in order to investigate the multidimensional effects of the treatment and their maintenance.

RESULT

Naming skills improved in all participants for treated and untreated items, were maintained over time, and were accompanied by improved discourse abilities. Visual and statistical analyses showed a significant treatment effect for naming skills in three out of the four participants.

CONCLUSION

A combination of executive function training and SFA treatment in people with chronic aphasia may improve both naming skills and discourse efficiency. Further studies are needed to substantiate these promising preliminary results.

The MINT Sprint 2.0: A picture naming test for detection of naming impairments in Alzheimer's disease and in preclinical AD

INTRODUCTION

Evidence on the onset of naming deficits in Alzheimer's disease (AD) is mixed. Some studies showed an early decline, but others did not. The present study introduces evidence from a novel naming test.

METHODS

Cognitively normal (n = 138), mild cognitive impairment (MCI; n = 21), and Alzheimer's disease (AD; n = 31) groups completed an expanded Multilingual Naming Test with a time-pressured administration procedure (MINT Sprint 2.0). Cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers classified participants as true controls (n = 61) or preclinical AD (n = 26).

RESULTS

Total correct MINT Sprint 2.0 scores exhibited good sensitivity and specificity (>0.85) for discriminating true controls from cognitively impaired (MCI/AD) groups and showed significant differences between true controls and preclinical AD groups. Time measurement did not improve classification, but percent resolved scores exhibited promise as an independent AD marker.

DISCUSSION

Naming deficits can be detected in the earliest stages of AD with tests and procedures designed for this purpose.

Do age and language impairment affect speed of recognition for words with high and low closeness centrality within the phonological network?

PURPOSE

Speed and accuracy of lexical access change with healthy ageing and neurodegeneration. While a word's immediate phonological neighbourhood density (i.e. words differing by a single phoneme) influences access, connectivity to all words in the phonological network (i.e. closeness centrality) may influence processing. This study aimed to investigate the effect of closeness centrality on speed and accuracy of lexical processing pre- and post- a single word-training session in healthy younger and older adults, and adults with logopenic primary progressive aphasia (lvPPA), which affects phonological processing.

METHOD

Participants included 29 young and 17 older healthy controls, and 10 adults with lvPPA. Participants received one session of word-training on words with high or low closeness centrality, using a picture-word verification task. Changes in lexical decision reaction times (RT) and accuracy were measured.

RESULT

Baseline RT was unaffected by age and accuracy was at ceiling for controls. Post-training, only young adults' RT were significantly faster. Adults with lvPPA were slower and less accurate than controls at baseline, with no training effect. Closeness centrality did not influence performance.

CONCLUSION

Absence of training effect for older adults suggests higher threshold to induce priming, possibly associated with insufficient dosage or fatigue. Implications for word-finding interventions with older adults are discussed.

A Classification Bias and an Exclusion Bias Jointly Overinflated the Estimation of Publication Biases in Bilingualism Research

A publication bias has been argued to affect the fate of results in bilingualism research. It was repeatedly suggested that studies presenting evidence for bilingual advantages are more likely to be published compared to studies that do not report results in favor of the bilingual advantage hypothesis. This work goes back to the original claim and re-examines both the dataset and the classification of the studies that were employed. We find that the exclusion of published works such as doctoral dissertations, book chapters, and conference proceedings from the original dataset significantly inflated the presumed publication bias. Moreover, the estimation of the publication bias was affected by a classification bias that uses a mega-category that consists of both null and negative outcomes. Yet finding evidence for a bilingual disadvantage is not synonymous with obtaining a result indistinguishable from zero. Consequently, grouping together null and negative findings in a mega-category has various ramifications, not only for the estimation of the presumed publication bias but also for the field's ability to appreciate the insofar hidden correlations between bilingual advantages and disadvantages. Tracking biases that inflate scientific results is important, but it is not enough. The next step is recognizing the nested Matryoshka doll effect of bias-within-bias, and this entails raising awareness for one's own bias blind spots in science.

Exploring Pragmatic Deficits in Relation to Theory of Mind and Executive Functions: Evidence from Individuals with Right Hemisphere Stroke

Research investigating pragmatic deficits in individuals with right hemisphere damage focuses on identifying the potential mechanisms responsible for the nature of these impairments. Nonetheless, the presumed shared cognitive mechanisms that could account for these deficits have not yet been established through data-based evidence from lesion studies. This study aimed to examine the co-occurrence of pragmatic language deficits, Theory of Mind impairments, and executive functions while also exploring their associations with brain lesion sites. Twenty-five patients suffering from unilateral right hemisphere stroke and thirty-seven healthy participants were recruited for this study. The two groups were tested in pragmatics, Theory of Mind, and executive function tasks. Structural imaging data were also obtained for the identification of the lesion sites. The findings of this study suggest a potential convergence among the three aforementioned cognitive mechanisms. Moreover, we postulate a hypothesis for a neural circuitry for communication impairments observed in individuals with right hemisphere damage.

The language network is not engaged in object categorization

The relationship between language and thought is the subject of long-standing debate. One claim states that language facilitates categorization of objects based on a certain feature (e.g. color) through the use of category labels that reduce interference from other, irrelevant features. Therefore, language impairment is expected to affect categorization of items grouped by a single feature (low-dimensional categories, e.g. "Yellow Things") more than categorization of items that share many features (high-dimensional categories, e.g. "Animals"). To test this account, we conducted two behavioral studies with individuals with aphasia and an fMRI experiment with healthy adults. The aphasia studies showed that selective low-dimensional categorization impairment was present in some, but not all, individuals with severe anomia and was not characteristic of aphasia in general. fMRI results revealed little activity in language-responsive brain regions during both low- and high-dimensional categorization; instead, categorization recruited the domain-general multiple-demand network (involved in wide-ranging cognitive tasks). Combined, results demonstrate that the language system is not implicated in object categorization. Instead, selective low-dimensional categorization impairment might be caused by damage to brain regions responsible for cognitive control. Our work adds to the growing evidence of the dissociation between the language system and many cognitive tasks in adults.

The role of semantic assessment in the differential diagnosis between late-life depression and Alzheimer's disease or amnestic mild cognitive impairment: systematic review and meta-analysis

OBJECT

The cognitive complaints encountered in late-life depression (LLD) make it difficult to distinguish from amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) based on an analysis of neurocognitive disorders. The hypothesis of the early impairment of semantic memory in AD and aMCI is considered a potential differential cognitive clue, but the absence of this impairment has not yet been confirmed in  LLD.

METHOD

Based on the PRISMA method, we systematically seek neuropsychological assessments of individuals with LLD, the present study included 31 studies representing 3291 controls and 2820 people with LLD. Wherever possible, studies that tested simultaneously groups with LLD, AD (or aMCI) were also included. The results of the group of neuropsychological tasks relying on semantic memory were analyzed in two groups of tasks with high- or low-executive demand. The mean average effect of LLD was calculated and compared to the incremental effect of aMCI or AD on the scores. Linear regressions including education, age, and severity and type of depression were run to seek their power of prediction for the mean average effects.

RESULTS

LLD has a medium effect on scores at semantic and phonemic fluency and naming and a small average effect on the low-executive demand tasks. Differences in education is a predictor of the effect of LLD on phonemic fluency and naming but not on semantic fluency or on low-executive demand tasks. Except for semantic fluency, aMCI did not demonstrate an incremental effect on the scores compared to LLD, while AD did, for all the tasks except phonemic fluency.

CONCLUSION

Assessment of semantic memory can be a discriminating clue for the distinction between depression and Alzheimer's disease but some methodological variables are highly influential to the scores, especially education. However, high-executive semantic tasks alone do not allow us to clearly distinguish LLD from AD or aMCI, as both pathologies seem to have a largely dialectical influential relationship, but low-executive semantic tasks appear as more sensible to this pathological distinction.

Effects of verbal tasks with varying difficulty on real-time respiratory airflow during speech generation in healthy young adults

Objective

Respiratory function is linked to sensory, affective, and cognitive processes and it is affected by environmental constraints such as cognitive demands. It is suggested that specific cognitive processes, such as working memory or executive functioning, may impact breathing. In turn, various lines of research have suggested a link between peak expiratory airflow (PEF) and cognitive function. However, there is scarce experimental support to the above assertions, especially regarding spoken language. Therefore, the present investigation aims to evaluate whether breathing varies as a function of performing verbal naming tasks with different difficulty levels.

Methods

Thirty healthy young adults, (age M = 25.37 years), participated in the study. Participants were required to perform aloud five verbal tasks ranged in order of difficulty: Reading single words, reading a text passage, object naming, semantic and phonemic fluency. A pneumotachograph mask was employed to acquire simultaneously the verbal responses, and three airflow parameters: Duration, peak, and volume at both stages of the respiratory cycle (i.e., inspiration/expiration). Data were analyzed with one-way repeated measures MANOVA.

Results

No significant differences were found between reading single words and object naming. In comparison, distinctive airflow requirements were found for reading a text passage, which were proportionally related to number of pronounced words. Though, the main finding of the study concerns the data on verbal fluency tasks, which not only entailed higher inhaled airflow resources but also a significant PEF.

Conclusion

Our data demonstrated that the most difficult tasks, namely semantic and phonemic verbal fluencies, relying on semantic search, executive function, and fast lexical retrieval of words were those requiring important amount of inhaled airflow and displaying a high peak expiratory airflow. The present findings demonstrated for the first time a direct association between complex verbal tasks and PEF. Inconclusive data related to object naming and reading single words are discussed in light of the methodological challenges inherent to the assessment of speech breathing and cognition in this line of investigation.

Task difficulty modulates age-related differences in functional connectivity during word production

Older adults typically report increased difficulty with language production, while its neural bases are less clear. The current study investigated the neural bases of age-related differences in language production at the word level and the modulating effect of task difficulty, focusing on task-based functional connectivity. Using an English phonological Go/No-Go picture naming task, task difficulty was manipulated by varying the proportion of naming trials (Go trials) and inhibition trials (No-Go trials) across runs. Behaviorally, compared to younger adults, older adults performed worse, and showed larger effects of task difficulty. Neurally, older adults had lower within language network connectivity compared to younger adults. Moreover, older adults' language network became less segregated as task difficulty increased. These results are consistent with the Compensation-Related Utilization of Neural Circuits Hypothesis, suggesting that the brain becomes less specified and efficient with increased task difficulty, and that these effects are stronger among older adults (i.e., more dedifferentiated).

Inter-relationship between cognitive performance and depressive symptoms and their association with quality of life in older adults: A network analysis based on the 2017-2018 wave of Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS)

BACKGROUND

Depressive symptoms and cognitive impairment are common psychiatric conditions and often co-occur in older adults. Network analysis has been widely used in exploring the inter-connections between psychiatric symptoms. The aim of this study was to explore the network model of depressive symptoms and cognitive performance, and their association with quality of life in people aged 65 years or above based on the 2017-2018 wave of Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS).

METHOD

Global cognitive performance, depressive symptoms, and global quality of life (QoL) were measured using the validated Chinese version of the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE), the 10-item Center for Epidemiologic Studies Short Depression Scale (CES-D), and the World Health Organization Quality of Life-brief version (WHOQOL-BREF), respectively. Central symptoms and bridge symptoms were identified via strength and bridge strength, respectively. The flow network was used to identify symptoms directly related to QoL. Network stability was examined using the case dropping bootstrap method.

RESULTS

A total of 9023 participants were included in the network analysis. CESD3 "Feeling blue/depressed", CESD4 "Everything was an effort", and At_C "Attention and Calculation" were the central (influential) symptoms that had the highest strength value. Three bridge symptoms (i.e., Nam "Naming", CESD2 "Difficulty with concentrating", and Lan "Language") were also identified. CESD10 "Sleep disturbances" had the strongest direct connection to QoL.

CONCLUSIONS

This exploratory study highlights the inter-relationships between cognitive performance and depressive symptoms in older adults in the general population. Interventions targeting bridge symptoms have the potential to alleviate depressive and cognitive symptoms in this population. Furthermore, improving sleep quality in older adults may reduce the negative impact of depression and cognition decline on QoL.

Physical activity moderates the association between executive function and functional connectivity in older adults

Recent evidence suggests that physical activity may influence the functional connectivity of the aging brain. The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of physical activity on the association between executive function and functional connectivity of key brain networks and graph theory metrics in community-dwelling older adults. Participants were 47 older adults (M = 73 years; SD = 5.92) who participated in neuropsychological testing, physical activity measurements, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Seed-to-voxel moderation analyses and graph theory analyses were conducted. Physical activity was significantly positively associated with default mode network functional connectivity (DMN FC; Posterior Cingulate Gyrus, p-FDR = 0.005; Frontal Pole (L), p-FDR = 0.005; Posterior Cingulate Gyrus, p-FDR = 0.006; Superior Frontal Gyrus (L), p-FDR = 0.016) and dorsal attention network functional connectivity (DAN FC; Inferior Frontal Gyrus Pars Opercularis (R), p-FDR = 0.044). The interaction between physical activity and executive function on the DMN FC and DAN FC was analyzed. The interaction between executive function and physical activity was significantly associated with DMN FC. When this significant interaction was probed, the association between physical activity and DMN FC differed between levels of high and low executive function such that the association was only significant at levels of high executive function. These results suggest that greater physical activity in later life is associated with greater DMN and DAN FC and provides evidence for the importance of physical activity in cognitively healthy older adults.

Development and Psychometric Evaluation of Alternate Short Forms of the Action Naming Test

OBJECTIVE

The action naming test (ANT) is a confrontation naming task used to assess the ability to name action words. This study aimed to create two short forms of the ANT and assess their equivalence, reliability, and comparability to the long form.

METHODS

In total, 100 healthy adults (31 females and 69 males), aged 34-89 years (M = 64 and SD = 10.4) were recruited. Short forms were developed using a split-half procedure.

RESULTS

No significant differences were observed between short forms on mean performance and distribution of scores for correct spontaneous responses, responses after semantic cue and total correct responses after cueing, but a higher number of accurate responses were prompted after phonemic cueing for Form A. Significant strong correlations between short forms and with the full form were encountered, although a weak correlation was found between short forms on performance after semantic cueing. IQ and age were significant predictors of action word retrieval. Whereas IQ also predicted post-cueing performance in all ANT forms, age predicted performance only for Form B.

CONCLUSION

The two ANT short forms are equivalent when considering total spontaneous responses and total correct responses after cueing, but semantic and phonemic cues evoked different responses on the two forms. The two short forms were also affected differently by demographics. When the psychometric equivalence of Forms A and B was examined, the strict conditions for parallel forms were not met for all performance indices. Therefore, these newly developed short versions should be considered as alternate forms.

Differential Associations of White Matter Brain Age With Language-Related Mechanisms in Word-Finding Ability Across the Adult Lifespan

Research on cognitive aging has established that word-finding ability declines progressively in late adulthood, whereas semantic mechanism in the language system is relatively stable. The aim of the present study was to investigate the associations of word-finding ability and language-related components with brain aging status, which was quantified by using the brain age paradigm. A total of 616 healthy participants aged 18–88 years from the Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience databank were recruited. The picture-naming task was used to test the participants’ language-related word retrieval ability through word-finding and word-generation processes. The naming response time (RT) and accuracy were measured under a baseline condition and two priming conditions, namely phonological and semantic priming. To estimate brain age, we established a brain age prediction model based on white matter (WM) features and estimated the modality-specific predicted age difference (PAD). Mass partial correlation analyses were performed to test the associations of WM-PAD with the cognitive performance measures under the baseline and two priming conditions. We observed that the domain-specific language WM-PAD and domain-general WM-PAD were significantly correlated with general word-finding ability. The phonological mechanism, not the semantic mechanism, in word-finding ability was significantly correlated with the domain-specific WM-PAD. In contrast, all behavioral measures of the conditions in the picture priming task were significantly associated with chronological age. The results suggest that chronological aging and WM aging have differential effects on language-related word retrieval functions, and support that cognitive alterations in word-finding functions involve not only the domain-specific processing within the frontotemporal language network but also the domain-general processing of executive functions in the fronto-parieto-occipital (or multi-demand) network. The findings further indicate that the phonological aspect of word retrieval ability declines as cerebral WM ages, whereas the semantic aspect is relatively resilient or unrelated to WM aging.

Strategies and cognitive reserve to preserve lexical production in aging

In the absence of any neuropsychiatric condition, older adults may show declining performance in several cognitive processes and among them, in retrieving and producing words, reflected in slower responses and even reduced accuracy compared to younger adults. To overcome this difficulty, healthy older adults implement compensatory strategies, which are the focus of this paper. We provide a review of mainstream findings on deficient mechanisms and possible neurocognitive strategies used by older adults to overcome the deleterious effects of age on lexical production. Moreover, we present findings on genetic and lifestyle factors that might either be protective or risk factors of cognitive impairment in advanced age. We propose that "aging-modulating factors" (AMF) can be modified, offering prevention opportunities against aging effects. Based on our review and this proposition, we introduce an integrative neurocognitive model of mechanisms and compensatory strategies for lexical production in older adults (entitled Lexical Access and Retrieval in Aging, LARA). The main hypothesis defended in LARA is that cognitive aging evolves heterogeneously and involves complementary domain-general and domain-specific mechanisms, with substantial inter-individual variability, reflected at behavioral, cognitive, and brain levels. Furthermore, we argue that the ability to compensate for the effect of cognitive aging depends on the amount of reserve specific to each individual which is, in turn, modulated by the AMF. Our conclusion is that a variety of mechanisms and compensatory strategies coexist in the same individual to oppose the effect of age. The role of reserve is pivotal for a successful coping with age-related changes and future research should continue to explore the modulating role of AMF.

The Role of Processing Speed and Cognitive Control on Word Retrieval in Aging and Aphasia

Purpose When speakers retrieve words, they do so extremely quickly and accurately-both speed and accuracy of word retrieval are compromised in persons with aphasia (PWA). This study examined the contribution of two domain-general mechanisms: processing speed and cognitive control on word retrieval in PWA. Method Three groups of participants, neurologically healthy young and older adults and PWA (n = 15 in each group), performed processing speed, cognitive control, lexical decision, and word retrieval tasks on a computer. The relationship between word retrieval speed and other tasks was examined for each group. Results Both aging and aphasia resulted in slower processing speed but did not affect cognitive control. Word retrieval response time delays in PWA were eliminated when processing speed was accounted for. Word retrieval speed was predicted by individual differences in cognitive control in young and older adults and additionally by processing speed in older adults. In PWA, word retrieval speed was predicted by severity of language deficit and cognitive control. Conclusions This study shows that processing speed is compromised in aphasia and could account for their slowed response times. Individual differences in cognitive control predicted word retrieval speed in healthy adults and PWA. These findings highlight the need to include nonlinguistic cognitive mechanisms in future models of word retrieval in healthy adults and word retrieval deficits in aphasia.

Demographic Effects on Longitudinal Semantic Processing, Working Memory, and Cognitive Speed

OBJECTIVES

To better understand and compare effects of aging and education across domains of language and cognition, we investigated whether (a) these domains show different associations with age and education, (b) these domains show similar patterns of age-related change over time, and (c) education moderates the rate of decline in these domains.

METHOD

We analyzed data from 306 older adults aged 55-85 at baseline of whom 116 returned for follow-up 4-8 years later. An exploratory factor analysis identified domains of language and cognition across a range of tasks. A confirmatory factor analysis analyzed cross-sectional associations of age and education with these domains. Subsequently, mixed linear models analyzed longitudinal change as a function of age and moderation by education.

RESULTS

We identified 2 language domains, that is, semantic control and semantic memory efficiency, and 2 cognitive domains, that is, working memory and cognitive speed. Older age negatively affected all domains except semantic memory efficiency, and higher education positively affected all domains except cognitive speed at baseline. In language domains, a steeper age-related decline was observed after age 73-74 compared to younger ages, while cognition declined linearly with age. Greater educational attainment did not protect the rate of decline over time in any domain.

DISCUSSION

Separate domains show varying effects of age and education at baseline, language versus cognitive domains show dissimilar patterns of age-related change over time, and education does not moderate the rate of decline in these domains. These findings broaden our understanding of age effects on cognitive and language abilities by placing observed age differences in context.