Cognitive Aging and Social Factors: Relationships to Executive Functioning, Theory of Mind, and Autobiographical Memory

Abstract

The present dissertation examined the relationships between various social factors, including loneliness, social network size, and social isolation, and aspects of cognition, including executive functioning and autobiographical memory. Across three studies, two primary aims guided this work: 1) to explore the relationship between aspects of executive functioning and social interaction among older adults, and 2) to compare autobiographical memory shared in a structured interview setting to everyday conversations, and to explore the ecological validity of a widely used autobiographical memory measurement tool. Study 1 examined cross-sectional associations between executive functioning and both subjective loneliness and objectively assessed social isolation using an ecological assessment tool, the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR). There was no compelling evidence that, among cognitively healthy older adults, there is a cross-sectional relationship between multiple aspects of executive functioning and either subjectively experienced loneliness or objectively observed time spent alone. Study 2 extended this work by incorporating a more dynamic, socially oriented theory of mind task that utilizes executive functioning. While executive functioning was associated with theory of mind performance, loneliness and isolation generally were not, and age-related differences emerged primarily for cognitive theory of mind. Exploratory analyses suggested that isolation was more strongly associated with cognitive theory of mind among younger adults in models examining inhibition, a subdomain of executive functioning, with this association attenuating with age. Study 3 evaluated, for the first time, whether a laboratory-based estimate of autobiographical event memory specificity predicts a person’s level of specificity while sharing event memories in daily social conversations. Findings indicated that even though laboratory tasks may provide some insight into how autobiographical event memories and thoughts are shared in daily conversation, they nonetheless may underestimate older adults’ natural episodic specificity. Together, these studies underscore the nuance of social-cognitive relationships in aging and highlight the importance of measurement sensitivity and ecological validity.