Prior work with older adults has shown that participating in a range of physical, social, and cognitive activities provides great benefits, such as improved mood and cognitive functioning. These activities can protect against common cognitive problems associated with aging (e.g., poor working memory and processing speed) and lower the risk of developing dementia, thus supporting the cognitive reserve hypothesis. Cognitive reserve refers to the preservation of an individual’s cognitive abilities over time despite changes in the brain that allows them to be resilient in performing daily and complex tasks (Stern, 2012). Historical factors such as education, life experiences, and occupational complexity, as well as current lifestyle behaviors such as cognitive and social activities may serve as proxies for cognitive reserve. It is not clear whether historical proxies of cognitive reserve (e.g., educational attainment) interact with more proximal lifestyle factors (e.g., recent cognitive stimulation) to impact cognitive functioning. In this study, we examined if education, recent cognitive activity, and their interaction predicted enhanced immediate memory and visual and verbal working memory in middle-aged to older adults.

Participants were 62 middle-aged to older adults (age 45-93; mean age = 65.9 years; 80.6% female; 70.9% Black; ∼75.0% with high school education or higher) recruited from a Louisiana housing facility for seniors with low or fixed incomes and a local community center. Data collection included the CHAMPS Physical Activity Questionnaire for Older Adults, Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale subtests (Digit Span Forward and Digit Span Backward), and the Size Judgment Span Task. Mixed-effects regression analyses were performed with education (less than high school, high school, college), the CHAMPS cognitive activity composite (Weaver & Jaeggi, 2021), and an education * cognitive activity interaction term as independent variables and cognitive test scores as the outcome variables. All models controlled for age and race/ethnicity.

Significant education by cognitive activity effects were observed for Digit Span Backward and Size Judgment Span, but not for Digit Span Forward. The interactions reflected a positive association between cognitive activity and cognitive functioning in people with at least a high school education, but not in people with less than a high school education.

Our results support previous findings that education level and engagement in cognitive activity may serve as protective factors against cognitive decline in later life. The finding that cognitive activity was not associated with better cognitive functioning at lower levels of education suggest that earlier life experiences may moderate the benefit of lifestyle interventions later in life. Future studies should examine whether other lifestyle interventions, such as exercise, are more beneficial for people with less cognitive reserve from earlier life experiences.