E PSY 224 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Peripheral Nervous System, Autobiographical Memory, Genetic Programming
10 May 2020
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Document Summary
Ageism: prejudice and discrimination directed at older people. Primary aging: aging that involves universal and irreversible changes that, due to genetic programming, occur as people get older. Secondary aging: changes in physical and cognitive functioning that are due to illness, health habits, and other individual differences, but which are not due to increased age itself and are not inevitable. Osteoporosis: a condition in which the bones become brittle, fragile, and thin, often brought about by a lack of estrogen in the diet. Peripheral slowing hypothesis: the theory suggesting that overall processing speed declines in the peripheral nervous system with increasing age. Generalized slowing hypothesis: the theory that processing in all parts of the nervous system, including the brain, is less efficient. Dementia: the most common mental disorder of the elderly, it covers several diseases, each of which includes serious memory loss accompanied by declines in other mental functioning.
