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Depression and Helplessness-Induced Cognitive Deficits Among the Aged

To investigate the impact of helplessness-induction on cognitive performance in the aged, 66 community-residing elderly persons (X=72.5 years) were administered a word association task, disguised as a test of onterpersonal empathy, under a) response independent (RI), b) response dependent (RD) reinforcement, o c) control conditions. The subjects were categorized as either depressed or non-depressed. Three (treatments) by two (levels of depression) by two measurements (pre- vs. post-treatment) ANOVA's were performed on scores from both short term memory and intelligence measures. These suggested that the more depressed elderly demonstrated greater helplessness-induced short term memory deficits, and to a lesser extent, fluid intellectual deficits.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc935720
Date05 1900
CreatorsRichardson, Sandra Kay
ContributorsHayslip, Bert, Kenelly, Kevin J., Garfin, Deborah
PublisherNorth Texas State University
Source SetsUniversity of North Texas
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis or Dissertation
Formativ, 67 leaves, Text
RightsPublic, Richardson, Sandra Kay, Copyright, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights

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