The present study examined the relationships between different types of activities, cognitive and social, and episodic memory and semantic memory. A total of 794 adult men and women from five age cohorts (aged 65-85 at baseline), participating in the longitudinal Betula project on aging, memory, and health, were included in the study. The participants were studied over 10 years (1995-2005) in threes waves. Recognition and recall were used as episodic memory tasks, and knowledge and verbal fluency as semantic memory tasks. The results, after controlling for age, gender, education and some diseases, including heart disease and hypertension, as covariates, showed unidirectional effects of social activity on episodic memory on all test occasions (β = .10). Also, episodic memory predicted change in cognitive activity for all test waves (β = .21-.22). The positive role of social activity on memory function is discussed in terms of cognitive reserve theory, and the reduction of stress. It also seems that episodic memory performance is a predictor of cognitive activity in old people. However, the opposite direction does not hold true.
展开▼
