Some older adults desire to continue living in the community in which they reside. The concept of Aging in Place (AIP) is appropriate for this idea. For AIP to be successful, the oldest-old need to demonstrate their abilities and live safely, independently, and comfortably in their homes and communities. Conversely, AIP in an inappropriate manner, without a safe environment, and without support provided, comprising dangerous situations caused by declining cognitive and physical function, lead to reduced quality of life for older people. Therefore, this study aimed to examine cognitive function in the oldest-old to understand differences between normal aging and cognitive decline due to dementia. Cognitive decline due to normal aging in the oldest-old is caused by impaired frontal lobe function, while decline due to Alzheimer’s disease is caused by impaired temporal-parietal lobe function, suggesting that this impairment may be useful for achieving independence for AIP.

This article discusses the psychological impact of leisure across a lifetime using a life-course perspective, which assumes that people’s experiences at earlier life stages shape their following developmental trajectories. Since leisure activities are part of one’s lifestyle, adopting this perspective to leisure research is invaluable. By reviewing a variety of research, the article discusses 1) the progress of psychological leisure research and the impact of leisure on subjective well-being and cognitive functioning, 2) transitions in leisure and their relationship from a life-course perspective, and 3) the benefits related to the accumulation of leisure activities across the lifespan. The present review concludes that positive psychological achievement (e.g., self-worth, affirmation, and self-realization) and cognitive foundation (e.g., high levels of basic cognitive skills) shaped through leisure participation in early life stages help overcome challenges in later stages (i.e., successfully adapt to psychological vulnerability and cognitive decline in old age).

The mental model theory (MMT) holds a deterministic view on causation regarding two aspects. From one aspect, MMT claims that the causal assertion “A causes B” implies that there are three temporally ordered possibilities: A and B, not A and B, not A and not B. On another aspect, MMT explicitly holds the view that “A causes B” indicates a necessary connection between A and B. Furthermore, MMT is strongly partial to the model of possibilities as the core meaning of causation but disregards other causal factors such as mechanisms, powers, or properties. In this paper, we showed that if MMT were to take its own principles seriously, then (a) the term “necessary connection” would be a vacuous concept, (b) it would confound causal necessity with logical necessity, or (c) the “mental model” would have little significance to causal determinism.

Society relies on third parties to adjudicate remedies for norm violations, but group membership and social pressure may affect how these third parties judge norm violators. Using a modified third-party punishment paradigm built off a dictator game (DG), we explore how being part of a group affects the way third parties punish malefactors (i.e., engage in altruistic intervention behavior), and further explore whether gain and loss contexts can regulate the influence of group information on the third-party punishment. In three studies, we investigate how each of the following might affect an adjudicating third party’s resolution of norm violations: (1) adjudicating alone or in the presence of an observing group, (2) adjudicating in the presence of groups of various sizes, and (3) the social pressure to conform with the judgments of other “peer” judges. Our results showed that third parties punished more forcibly in the presence of a group, and this result occurred not only in the gain context but also in the loss context (Study 1, N = 50). Third parties punished dictators more harshly when observed by smaller than larger groups, this time predominantly in the loss context (Study 2, N = 50). Finally, third parties generally acted by the judicial decisions of fellow cohort members, conforming most with peer judgments in the loss context (Study 3, N = 50). This research provides specific, descriptive evidence of how group information impacts third-party altruistic interventions to maintain social norms, broadening the horizon for understanding third-party punishment and involvement in social norm regulation.

Humans, as prosocial animals, expose themselves to the risk of exploitation if they fail to determine whether other individuals are trustworthy. People are keen to ascertain the trustworthiness of others that they instantly form initial impressions of others’ trustworthiness from perceptual cues, especially from faces. However, because perceived trustworthiness has low predictive validity, “true” trustworthiness of another individual must be learned from that person’s actual behavior. Considering the increasing societal and scholarly attention to fraud victimization among older adults, we conducted a series of studies comparing the perceptions and learning of other people’s trustworthiness between older and younger adults. The results showed a cross-age similarity in trustworthiness perception (Study 1), but an age-related decline in trustworthiness learning (Study 2). Furthermore, ventral striatal activity was found to be related to older adults’ failure to learn trustworthiness, suggesting the involvement of motivational mechanisms (Study 3).

Body representation is shaped by integrating information from various sensory modalities. This study investigated the relationship between age-related changes in the visuo-proprioceptive integration of body representation and interoceptive ability. Results showed that older adults demonstrated a greater proprioceptive drift than younger counterparts. Further, the results revealed that younger adults’ proprioceptive drift tended to diminish as time elapsed; conversely, older adults did not experience any reduction. No discrepancies were detected between age groups on any interoceptive abilities. However, all participants exhibited a significant positive correlation between their interoceptive sensibility and the degree of body position perception update. Therefore, it can be concluded that the higher their interoceptive sensibility, the more likely it is that participants experience body position perception update. These results suggest that interoceptive ability is associated with the update process of body position perception but does not explain the gap between age groups.