Natalie Fermoselle

Major: Integrative Neuroscience

Biography: Natalie is a senior integrative neuroscience major at FCLC. With a wide variety of research interests, from cognitive psychology to psycholinguistics, she joined the Memory & Aging Lab as a research assistant in Summer 2022. Following graduation, she plans to pursue a career in STEM education and obtain a PhD in psychology.

Project Title: Examining the Role of Subjective Age in Subjective and Objective Cognition

Faculty Mentor: Karen Siedlecki, Department of Psychology

Abstract: Subjective age refers to the age an individual feels, and is associated with facets of psychological and physical health and cognitive functioning (Stephan et al., 2014; Morris et al., 2021). The current study examines the relationship between subjective age and objective and subjective cognition in a community-based sample of adults. Data were collected between October 2021 and March 2022 as part of a larger study (N= 481; ages 18-101) examining the impact of COVID-19 infection on cognition. A series of two-step hierarchical linear regression models revealed that subjective age was not a significant predictor of performance on any objective measures of cognition. However, younger subjective age was significantly associated with lower mean scores on a measure of subjective cognition called the Brief Mental Fatigue questionnaire ( = - .24, p < .001), and with lower values on subjective assessment of general cognitive functioning ( = - .16, p < .05). These results suggest that subjective age may be a strong predictor of subjective cognitive functioning than of objective cognition. Future research should continue to evaluate subjective age as a predictor of various domains of objective and subjective cognitive function.