Functional Autonomy Affects Elderly Spatial Perception in Body-Centered Coordinates

Formation Mechanisms of Rural Summer Health Destination Loyalty: Exploration and Comparison of Low- and High-Aged Elderly Leisure Vacation Tourists

Destination loyalty is a key indicator of the competitiveness of tourist destinations. Rural summer health leisure vacations for urban elderly (RSHLVUE) tourists span a wide range of ages. Destination operators need to understand the loyalty formation mechanisms of different aged tourists. RSHLVUE tourists were divided into a low-aged group (LA) and a high-aged group (HA) to examine and modify the hypothesis of the relationship between perceived value, tourist well-being, place attachment, and destination loyalty based on affect, behavior, and cognition (ABC) theory. The test results of the measurement model indicate that the HA showed stronger responses in terms of cost value, sense of meaning, and place dependency. The formation mechanism of destination loyalty for the LA is tourist well-being → perceived value → place attachment → destination loyalty, and for the HA is perceived value → tourist well-being → place attachment → destination loyalty. The findings deepen the understanding of destination loyalty among elderly leisure vacation tourists and can guide RSHLVUE destination managers to enhance destination competitiveness.

Stimulation of the Social Brain Improves Perspective Selection in Older Adults: A HD-tDCS Study

There is evidence for dissociable, causal roles for two key social brain regions in young adults. Specifically, the right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) is associated with embodied perspective taking, whereas the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) is associated with the integration of social information. However, it is unknown whether these causal brain-behaviour associations are evident in older adults. Fifty-two healthy older adults were stratified to receive either rTPJ or dmPFC anodal high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation in a sham-controlled, double-blinded, repeated-measures design. Self-other processing was assessed across implicit and explicit level one (line-of-sight) and level two (embodied rotation) visual perspective taking (VPT) tasks, and self-other encoding effects on episodic memory. Both rTPJ and dmPFC stimulation reduced the influence of the alternate perspective during level one VPT, indexed by a reduced congruency effect (difference between congruent and incongruent perspectives). There were no stimulation effects on level two perspective taking nor self-other encoding effects on episodic memory. Stimulation to the rTPJ and dmPFC improved perspective selection during level one perspective taking. However, dissociable effects on self-other processing, previously observed in young adults, were not identified in older adults. The results provide causal evidence for age-related changes in social brain function that requires further scrutinization.

Spatial navigation and dual-task performance in patients with Dementia that present partial dependence in instrumental activity of daily living

BACKGROUND

Instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs) ability impairments are clearly related to cognitive and motor decline, as well as to the progression of Dementia. However, more low-cost assessments are necessary to better understand the process of IADL in patients with Dementia.

OBJECTIVE

To compare cognitive, motor and cognitive-motor performance at different stages of dependence on IADL in patients with Dementia.

METHODS

Dementia patients (n = 53, age range: 63-94) and healthy older adults (n = 39, age range: 62-97) were included, and those with Dementia were separated into IADL 1 (n = 18), IADL 2 (n = 17), IADL 3 (n = 18). All groups performed cognitive (Trail making test A, semantic verbal fluency, and Stroop test), motor (sit to stand, aerobic steps, and 8-foot up-and-go), and cognitive-motor tests (dual-task, and spatial navigation). One-way ANOVA, Kruskal-Wallis, and Bonferroni post-hoc tests were used to compare groups. Also, an effect size (ES) has been applied to evaluate differences among the dementia groups while the healthy older adults were used as a reference group.

RESULTS

Only cognitive-motor and cognitive tests showed significant differences among groups (IADL 1 x IADL 2 x IADL 3). Compared with the healthy group, the ES analysis exposed that patients in different stages of IADL showed the worst performance on tests combining motor and cognitive demand, but not for motor and cognitive function separately.

CONCLUSION

Poor dual-task and spatial navigation abilities are present in partial dependence in IADL, and these tasks should be considered as a functionality screening tool in patients with Dementia.

Evoked pleasure and approach-avoidance in response to pollution

From year-to-year, environment is becoming one of the major concerns of human societies. Few studies have investigated the biological processes involved in environmental scene perception. Here, we initiate a line of research by beginning to study emotional processes involved in this perception. Our results demonstrate a clear distinction between "Clean" and "Polluted" environments according to the pleasure and approach desire ratings they induced. Moreover, women expressed higher pleasure in the "Clean" condition, as did older participants. Finally, rural scenes induced higher pleasure in participants than urban ones.