TY - JOUR
T1 - Age differences in cognitive performance
T2 - A study of cultural differences in Historical Context
AU - Ojeda, Natalia
AU - Aretouli, Eleni
AU - Peña, Javier
AU - Schretlen, David J.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 The Authors. Journal of Neuropsychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Psychological Society.
PY - 2016/3/1
Y1 - 2016/3/1
N2 - Ethnicity and cultural experience can affect neuropsychological performance, but they are rarely assessed in historical context. Attention measures are considered strongly biologically determined and therefore potentially culture-fair. In this study, we assessed the cross-cultural equivalence of Spanish and English versions of the Trail Making Test (TMT; Reitan, 1958, Perceptual and Motor Skills, 8, 271-276) and the Brief Test of Attention (BTA; Schretlen et al., 1996, The Clinical Neuropsychologist, 10, 80-89) in two large samples of Americans (N = 203) and Spaniards (N = 213), divided into younger and older subgroups. The older Spaniards lived under Franco's political regime (1936-1975), whereas the Americans never experienced such repression. Overall, TMT performance was culture-sensitive, whereas BTA performance was not. However, when both groups were stratified by age, cultural differences in TMT performance were restricted to older participants, suggesting that historical experience across generations might have contributed to the observed differences in cognitive performance. Even such basic cognitive processes as attention, working memory, and resource sharing might be shaped to some degree by historical experiences that contribute to cultural differences.
AB - Ethnicity and cultural experience can affect neuropsychological performance, but they are rarely assessed in historical context. Attention measures are considered strongly biologically determined and therefore potentially culture-fair. In this study, we assessed the cross-cultural equivalence of Spanish and English versions of the Trail Making Test (TMT; Reitan, 1958, Perceptual and Motor Skills, 8, 271-276) and the Brief Test of Attention (BTA; Schretlen et al., 1996, The Clinical Neuropsychologist, 10, 80-89) in two large samples of Americans (N = 203) and Spaniards (N = 213), divided into younger and older subgroups. The older Spaniards lived under Franco's political regime (1936-1975), whereas the Americans never experienced such repression. Overall, TMT performance was culture-sensitive, whereas BTA performance was not. However, when both groups were stratified by age, cultural differences in TMT performance were restricted to older participants, suggesting that historical experience across generations might have contributed to the observed differences in cognitive performance. Even such basic cognitive processes as attention, working memory, and resource sharing might be shaped to some degree by historical experiences that contribute to cultural differences.
KW - Brief Test of Attention
KW - Trail Making Test
KW - attention
KW - cohort effects
KW - cross-cultural neuropsychology
KW - historical experience
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U2 - 10.1111/jnp.12059
DO - 10.1111/jnp.12059
M3 - Review article
C2 - 25418760
AN - SCOPUS:84959373703
SN - 1748-6645
VL - 10
SP - 104
EP - 115
JO - Journal of Neuropsychology
JF - Journal of Neuropsychology
IS - 1
ER -