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Access Type
WSU Access
Date of Award
January 2024
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Department
Psychology
First Advisor
John L. Woodard
Abstract
Relational frame theory (RFT) provides a framework that accounts for how humans learn to relate objects or concepts that are and are not explicitly taught. For example, the spoken word dog (A) can be paired with the written word dog (B) and a photograph of a dog (C). In this case, only two relations were trained (AB and AC). Nevertheless, a person automatically derives four additional relations (BA, CA, BC, and CB) without those relations being explicitly taught. Several types of contextual frames can be used to establish these relations: coordination (e.g., A “is the same as” B), opposition (e.g., A “is the opposite of” B), magnitude (e.g., A “is bigger than” B), and temporal (e.g., A “comes before” B) in which A and B can represent any stimulus (Hayes et al., 1991). Developmentally, coordination framing emerges earliest, followed by opposition framing and then magnitude and temporal framing. However, whether these framing abilities are lost in reverse order in late life or in the presence of neuropathology is unknown. The proposed research will develop novel framing tasks to investigate the questions of whether there are developmental differences in the ability to use coordination, magnitude, and temporal framing in younger adults (YA) and older adults (OA) and whether family history (FH) risk for dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease (AD) could accelerate the loss of specific framing skills relative to OA without a FH AD. We contrasted response time (RT) and accuracy during tasks involving coordination, magnitude, and temporal framing for a group of YA and healthy OA. We compared the same performance measures for individuals with and without a first-degree family relative with AD within the OA group. We predicted that OA would show slower RT and lower accuracy than YA during tasks requiring higher-order magnitude and temporal framing relative to coordination framing. We also expected that OA with a first-degree FH of AD (FH AD+) would show slower RT and lower accuracy during magnitude and temporal framing tasks than coordination framing tasks relative to persons without a first-degree FH AD (FH AD-). OA were slower and less accurate than YA on the task, likely due to healthy OA having cognitive aging difficulties in the processing speed and complex attention abilities underlying the computer task. OA tended to show little to no learning across frame and relation types whereas YA demonstrated learning. Unexpectedly, OA were remarkably accurate even for the higher complexity relation and frame types. This result pattern may be due to the high education and verbal ability of our OA sample which acted as a compensatory effect for diminished attention and processing speed. FH AD+ were slower and less accurate than FH AD-. FH AD+ performing worse coincides with our expectations that OA with risk factors for AD, like family history in the current study, often show subtle reductions in memory performance long before any explicitly noticeable symptoms of AD appear (Bondi et al., 1996).
Recommended Citation
Katschke, Jessica, "Age- And Alzheimer’s Disease Risk-Related Performance On Coordination, Magnitude, And Temporal Relational Framing Tasks" (2024). Wayne State University Dissertations. 3927.
https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/oa_dissertations/3927
