Lars Backman - Böcker

With an ever increasing population of aging people in the western world, it is more crucial than ever that we try to understand how and why cognitive competence breaks down with advancing age; why do some people follow normal patterns of cognitive change, while others follow a path of progressive decline, with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's. What can be done to prevent cognitive decline - or to avoid neurodegenerative diseases? The answers, if they come, will not emerge from research within one discipline, but from work being done across a range of scientific and medical specialities. This volume brings together leading experts from a range of fields studying cognitive aging, including neuroscience, pharmacology, health, genetics, sensory biology, and epidemiology. Unlike other books in this area, this book is more about 'new frontiers' than past research and accomplishments. Recently cognitive aging research has taken several new directions, linking with, and benefiting from, rapid technological and theoretical advances in these neighbouring disciplines. This book provides unique interdisciplinary coverage of the topic. With each chapter including commentaries from specialists in related fields, the book provides an integrative study of the topic. For those within the fields of psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and geriatrics, this volume will make an important contribution in furthering our understanding of a problem that affects us all.

The concept of compensation in psychology refers to processes through which a gap or mismatch between current accessible skills and environmental demands is reduced or closed. These gaps can be principally the result of losses, such as those associated with aging or interpersonal role changes; injuries, such as those that may occur to the neurological or sensory systems; organic or functional diseases, such as the dementias or schizophrenia; and congenital deficits, such as those apparent in autism or some learning disabilities.Whether the demand-skill gaps can be bridged completely, reduced only moderately, or are impossible to close, depends on a variety of factors. In every case, however, the guiding notions of compensation are that: * some such deficits may be amendable, * the continuation of the effects of the gap may be avoidable, and * some functioning may be recoverable.In this sense, compensation is related to adaptation; it is about overcoming deficits, managing the effects of losses, and promoting improvement in psychological functioning.Compensation is a concept that has a long and rich history in numerous domains of psychological research and practice. To date, however, few of the relevant research domains have benefitted explicitly or optimally from considering alternative perspectives on the concept of compensation. Although researchers and practitioners in several areas of psychology have actively pursued programs with compensation as a central concept, communication across disciplinary divides has been lacking. Comparing and contrasting the uses and implications of the concept across neighboring (and even not-so-adjacent) areas of psychology can promote advances in both theoretical and practical pursuits.The goal of this book is to carry inchoate integrative efforts to a new level of clarity. To this end, the editors have recruited major authors from selected principal areas of research and practice in psychological compensation. The authors review the current state of compensation scholarship in their domains of specialization. State-of-the-art reviews of this rapidly expanding area of scholarship are, therefore, collected under one cover for the first time. In this way, a wide variety of readers who might otherwise rarely cross professional paths with one another, can quickly learn about alternative preferences, agendas and methods, as well as novel research results, interpretations, and practical applications.Designed to contain broad, deep, and current perspectives on compensation, this volume continues the processes of: * explicating the concept of compensation; * linking and distinguishing compensation from neighboring concepts; * describing the variety of compensatory mechanisms operating in a wide range of phenomena; and * illustrating how compensatory mechanisms can be harnessed or trained to manage losses or deficits and to promote gains or at least maintenance of functioning.

This Special Issue includes reviews of crucial issues in current Cognitive Gerontology, and accounts of recent empirical work. Susan Kemper, Shannon Rash, Donna Kynette and Suzanne Norman describe the structure of Adult Narratives, Jerker Rönnberg describes research on Cognitive and Communicative Function: The Effect of Chronological Age and "Handicap Age". Gillian Cohen describes investigations of Age Differences in Recognition and Retrieval of Proper Names in terms of Anderson's "Fan Effect" and Elizabeth Stine and Arthur Wingfield discuss how much Working Memory deficits contribute to Age Differences in Discourse Memory. There are reviews of Age Differences in Attentional Selectivity and Capacity by David Madden, and a critique of Age Associated Memory Impairment by T John Rohsen.

The concept of compensation in psychology refers to processes through which a gap or mismatch between current accessible skills and environmental demands is reduced or closed. These gaps can be principally the result of losses, such as those associated with aging or interpersonal role changes; injuries, such as those that may occur to the neurological or sensory systems; organic or functional diseases, such as the dementias or schizophrenia; and congenital deficits, such as those apparent in autism or some learning disabilities.Whether the demand-skill gaps can be bridged completely, reduced only moderately, or are impossible to close, depends on a variety of factors. In every case, however, the guiding notions of compensation are that: * some such deficits may be amendable, * the continuation of the effects of the gap may be avoidable, and * some functioning may be recoverable.In this sense, compensation is related to adaptation; it is about overcoming deficits, managing the effects of losses, and promoting improvement in psychological functioning.Compensation is a concept that has a long and rich history in numerous domains of psychological research and practice. To date, however, few of the relevant research domains have benefitted explicitly or optimally from considering alternative perspectives on the concept of compensation. Although researchers and practitioners in several areas of psychology have actively pursued programs with compensation as a central concept, communication across disciplinary divides has been lacking. Comparing and contrasting the uses and implications of the concept across neighboring (and even not-so-adjacent) areas of psychology can promote advances in both theoretical and practical pursuits.The goal of this book is to carry inchoate integrative efforts to a new level of clarity. To this end, the editors have recruited major authors from selected principal areas of research and practice in psychological compensation. The authors review the current state of compensation scholarship in their domains of specialization. State-of-the-art reviews of this rapidly expanding area of scholarship are, therefore, collected under one cover for the first time. In this way, a wide variety of readers who might otherwise rarely cross professional paths with one another, can quickly learn about alternative preferences, agendas and methods, as well as novel research results, interpretations, and practical applications.Designed to contain broad, deep, and current perspectives on compensation, this volume continues the processes of: * explicating the concept of compensation; * linking and distinguishing compensation from neighboring concepts; * describing the variety of compensatory mechanisms operating in a wide range of phenomena; and * illustrating how compensatory mechanisms can be harnessed or trained to manage losses or deficits and to promote gains or at least maintenance of functioning.

These two volumes represent the cutting edge of contemporary theory and research in psychological science. Based on the keynote and state-of-the-art lectures from the 27th International Congress of Psychology, the volumes feature a collection of chapters written by international leaders in psychological scholarship. The chapters reflect the diversity of current research topics in psychology, where old boundaries have become obsolete and subdivisions from the past merge to form new objects of study. Volume 1 addresses cognitive, biological, and health perspectives. It includes sections on the neural mechanisms underlying psychological processes; the core areas in experimental psychology, perception, attention, learning, and memory; the multiple aspects of psychological health; the interaction between cognitive and emotional processes; and higher cognitive processes with special focus on decision-making and language. Volume 2 deals with social, developmental, and clinical perspectives. The sections highlight human development across the life span; basic and applied issues in personality, emotion, and clinical psychology; social psychology, ranging from experimental work through social constructivism; and gender.

These two volumes represent the cutting edge of contemporary theory and research in psychological science. Based on the keynote and state-of-the-art lectures from the 27th International Congress of Psychology, the volumes feature a collection of chapters written by international leaders in psychological scholarship. The chapters reflect the diversity of current research topics in psychology, where old boundaries have become obsolete and subdivisions from the past merge to form new objects of study. Volume 1 addresses cognitive, biological, and health perspectives. It includes sections on the neural mechanisms underlying psychological processes; the core areas in experimental psychology, perception, attention, learning, and memory; the multiple aspects of psychological health; the interaction between cognitive and emotional processes; and higher cognitive processes with special focus on decision-making and language. Volume 2 deals with social, developmental, and clinical perspectives. The sections highlight human development across the life span; basic and applied issues in personality, emotion, and clinical psychology; social psychology, ranging from experimental work through social constructivism; and gender.

These two volumes represent the cutting edge of contemporary theory and research in psychological science. Based on the keynote and state-of-the-art lectures from the 27th International Congress of Psychology, the volumes feature a collection of chapters written by international leaders in psychological scholarship. The chapters reflect the diversity of current research topics in psychology, where old boundaries have become obsolete and subdivisions from the past merge to form new objects of study. Volume 1 addresses cognitive, biological, and health perspectives. It includes sections on the neural mechanisms underlying psychological processes; the core areas in experimental psychology, perception, attention, learning, and memory; the multiple aspects of psychological health; the interaction between cognitive and emotional processes; and higher cognitive processes with special focus on decision-making and language. Volume 2 deals with social, developmental, and clinical perspectives. The sections highlight human development across the life span; basic and applied issues in personality, emotion, and clinical psychology; social psychology, ranging from experimental work through social constructivism; and gender.

These two volumes represent the cutting edge of contemporary theory and research in psychological science. Based on the keynote and state-of-the-art lectures from the 27th International Congress of Psychology, the volumes feature a collection of chapters written by international leaders in psychological scholarship. The chapters reflect the diversity of current research topics in psychology, where old boundaries have become obsolete and subdivisions from the past merge to form new objects of study. Volume 1 addresses cognitive, biological, and health perspectives. It includes sections on the neural mechanisms underlying psychological processes; the core areas in experimental psychology, perception, attention, learning, and memory; the multiple aspects of psychological health; the interaction between cognitive and emotional processes; and higher cognitive processes with special focus on decision-making and language. Volume 2 deals with social, developmental, and clinical perspectives. The sections highlight human development across the life span; basic and applied issues in personality, emotion, and clinical psychology; social psychology, ranging from experimental work through social constructivism; and gender.