DOES HBA1C INFLUENCE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STRESS AND COGNITION? FINDINGS FROM THE VA NORMATIVE AGING STUDY


 Type 2 diabetes has increased in prevalence globally, with potential adverse effects on cognition. Both high levels of hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) and stressful life events (SLEs) are associated with impaired cognitive performance, but few studies have examined their synergistic effects. The present study examined direct effects of stress and HbA1c on several cognitive outcomes, and whether HbA1c moderated the relationship between SLEs and cognition. Utilizing a sample of 527 older men from the VA Normative Aging Study (Mage = 74.3, SD = 6.5), stress was inversely related to MMSE, verbal fluency, and pattern recognition; HbA1c was only inversely associated with MMSE. The moderation model was supported only for pattern recognition (𝛽 = 1.64, p < .05), with stress having worse effects in those high in HbA1c. Stratifying analyses by age group (<75, 75+) showed that stress predicted cognition only in the young-old, while HbA1c was inversely related to cognition only in old-old participants. Further, these age-group analyses yielded different effects of demographics on cognition. In the young-old, age was consistently inversely related to all cognitive outcomes, but in the old-old only with MMSE and word list recall. Among the young-old, education was associated with only word list recall but improved performance for most scales among the old-old. Finally, HbA1c intensified the effect of stress moderation on verbal fluency only in old-old (𝛽 = 2.78, p < .05). In summary, stress was more important for cognition in the young-old, while education and health status were more important in the old-old.

As speech is often ambiguous, pragmatic reasoningthe process of integrating multiple sources of information including semantics, ostensive cues and contextual information (Bohn & Frank, 2019)-is essential to understanding a speaker's intentions.Despite current literature suggesting that certain social cognitive processes such as gazeprocessing (Slessor et al., 2014) appear to be impaired in late adulthood, it is not well understood if pragmatic reasoning decline with age.Here, we examined young adults' (aged 19-25; n=41) and older adults' (aged 60-79; n=41) ability to engage in pragmatic reasoning in a cue integration task.In Experiment 1, participants had to integrate contextual (participants and speaker knew there were two novel objects but the latter could only see one), semantic ("There's the [novellabel]" or "Where's the [novel-label]"), and gaze (speaker looked at the mutually-visible object) cues to identify the referent (Nurmsoo & Bloom, 2008).In Experiment 2, participants received contextual and semantic cues less gaze cue.
In both experiments, the target referent object for "There" and "Where" trials was the mutually-visible object and the object the speaker could not see respectively.Overall, young adults outperformed older adults, even in the simpler twocue Experiment 2 (ps<.006).While older adults were significantly above chance in "There" trials for both experiments as well as "Where" trials in Experiment 2 (ps<.05),they had specific difficulty in integrating three cues in "Where" trials, where a more sophisticated interpretation of the multiple cues was required (p=.42).Our findings provide important insights into an age-related decline of pragmatic reasoning in older adults.

COMPARING WORKING MEMORY AND VERBAL LEARNING IN OLDER ADULT MUSICIANS AND NON-MUSICIANS
Caroline Galloway, 1 and Jessica Strong, 2 1.University of Prince Edward Island, University of Prince Edward Island, Prince Edward Island, Canada, 2. University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada Previous research suggests that learning or playing an instrument may benefit working memory and executive functioning.The literature also suggests vocal training or singing ability may increase proficiency in verbal learning and working memory.Despite the benefits of musical training, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear.Older adult participants (N=38, Mean age =70.2) provided their music training history and completed a cognitive test battery.Musicians were either instrumentalists and/or vocalists (N=24) or nonmusicians (N=14).Independent t test analyses were run with the current modest sample size to compare scores in basic and complex attention and working memory (Digit Span Forward (DSF) and Digit Span Backwards (DSB, and Digit Span Sequencing (DSS)), and verbal learning and memory (California Verbal Learning Test-3 (CVLT)).Results found that musicians/singers had higher scores compared to nonmusicians on DSS (t(32)= -1.96, Cohen's d =.72, p =.058) and on CVLT delayed raw scores(t(32)= -1.98, Cohen's d=.71, p=.056), both with a medium-large effect size.There were no significant differences found between musicians and nonmusicians in DSF and DSB or on CVLT immediate recall/ learning.The results suggest that musical training, either instrumental or vocal, may contribute to working memory and verbal memory in older adults.Both the Digit Span task and CVLT rely heavily on executive functioning ability, which may act as a mechanism or mediator between instrumental and vocal training and scores on these cognitive tasks.

DOES HBA1C INFLUENCE THE RELATIONSHIP BE-TWEEN STRESS AND COGNITION? FINDINGS FROM THE VA NORMATIVE AGING STUDY
Austin Brockmann, 1 Carolyn Aldwin, 1 and Avron Spiro, 2 1. Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, United States, 2. Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States Type 2 diabetes has increased in prevalence globally, with potential adverse effects on cognition.Both high levels of hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) and stressful life events (SLEs) are associated with impaired cognitive performance, but few studies have examined their synergistic effects.The present study examined direct effects of stress and HbA1c on several cognitive outcomes, and whether HbA1c moderated the relationship between SLEs and cognition.Utilizing a sample of 527 older men from the VA Normative Aging Study (Mage = 74.3,SD = 6.5), stress was inversely related to MMSE, verbal fluency, and pattern recognition; HbA1c was only inversely associated with MMSE.The moderation model was supported only for pattern recognition ( = 1.64, p < .05),with stress having worse effects in those high in HbA1c.Stratifying analyses by age group (<75, 75+) showed that stress predicted cognition only in the young-old, while HbA1c was inversely related to cognition only in old-old participants.Further, these age-group analyses yielded different effects of demographics on cognition.In the young-old, age was consistently inversely related to all cognitive outcomes, but in the old-old only with MMSE and word list recall.Among the young-old, education was associated with only word list recall but improved performance for most scales among the old-old.Finally, HbA1c intensified the effect of stress moderation on verbal fluency only in old-old ( = 2.78, p < .05).In summary, stress was more important for cognition in the young-old, while education and health status were more important in the old-old.

EFFECTS OF AGE AND SELF-PERFORMANCE ON MEMORY FOR THE ACTIONS OF OTHER PEOPLE
Alan Kersten, 1 Julie Earles, 2 and Jennifer Brymer, 2 1.Florida Atlantic University,Boca Raton,Florida,United States,2. Florida Atlantic University,Jupiter,Florida,United States This research tested whether performing an action themselves leads young and older adults to have difficulty remembering which of a number of other people had performed that same action.It also tested whether observing another person perform an action leads to false memory for self-performance of that action.Young adults and healthy older adults 62 to 88 years of age viewed videos of actors performing actions.After viewing some of the actions, participants were instructed to perform those same actions themselves.Participants were tested one week later on their memory for their own actions and for the actions of the actors in the videos.Older adults were more strongly influenced by self-performance than were young adults when asked whether the actor in a test item had performed the same action previously.Young adults performed better than older adults at discriminating the correct and incorrect actors in the videos, although both groups