Verbal Learning Changes in Older Adults Across 18 Months

ABSTRACT

The major aim of this study was to investigate individual changes in verbal learning across a period of 18 months. Individual differences in verbal learning have largely been neglected in the last years and, even more so, individual differences in change in verbal learning. The sample for this study comes from the Zurich Longitudinal Study on Cognitive Aging (ZULU; Zimprich et al., 2008a) and comprised 336 older adults in the age range of 65–80 years at first measurement occasion. In order to address change in verbal learning we used a latent change model of structured latent growth curves to account for the non-linearity of the verbal learning data. The individual learning trajectories were captured by a hyperbolic function which yielded three psychologically distinct parameters: initial performance, learning rate, and asymptotic performance. We found that average performance increased with respect to initial performance, but not in learning rate or in asymptotic performance. Further, variances and covariances remained stable across both measurement occasions, indicating that the amount of individual differences in the three parameters remained stable, as did the relationships among them. Moreover, older adults differed reliably in their amount of change in initial performance and asymptotic performance. Eventually, changes in asymptotic performance and learning rate were strongly negatively correlated. It thus appears as if change in verbal learning in old age is a constrained process: an increase in total learning capacity implies that it takes longer to learn. Together, these results point to the significance of individual differences in change of verbal learning in the elderly.

Keywords:

• Verbal learning
• Longitudinal
• Old age
• Structured growth
• Latent change

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Preparation of this manuscript was, in part, supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation, grant SNSF-100013-103525. The order of authors is random, both have contributed equally.

Notes

¹ As an aside, we note here that retest effects in cognitive aging research have mainly been examined in conjunction with absolute stability, that is, average performance changes, by comparing cross-sectional and longitudinal data (e.g., Ferrer, Salthouse, Stewart, & Schwartz, 2004). Of course, retest effects play a role also with respect to the other types of change, that is, structural change, differential change, change of divergence, and individual differences in change. At least the examination of differential change and individual differences in change requires longitudinal data, which implies that retest effects are not easily separable from developmental changes.