Natural disasters are stressful events with cognitive consequences that are poorly understood. In August of 2016, historic flooding in the greater Baton Rouge, LA area resulted in 13 deaths and an estimated 8.7 billion in damages. While this flooding occurred in one region of the country, natural disasters take many forms and can occur in all parts of the United States and around the world. A clear understanding of the consequences of natural disasters on cognition, especially for older adults, has important scientific and societal impacts. The research supported by this award will examine functioning in multiple cognitive domains following a disaster to assess the consequences of stress on cognition and the impact on everyday functioning in a number of real-world situations. The study will measure these cognitive domains at two time points to allow for consideration of how individuals recover following such events. Tracking the relationships among cognitive domains across time has implications for basic understanding of the architecture of cognition as well as how it is influenced by disasters.
In this Rapid Response Research Grant (RAPID), Dr. Katie Cherry (Louisiana State University) and her research team will explore several key elements of cognition that relate to functioning "in the moment." They will obtain measures of immediate memory, or working memory, sustained attentional resources, long-term memory, and intelligence in a longitudinal design with data collection at two points following disaster exposure. By examining working memory, and its relationship to other key constructs of cognitive functioning, the research team will gain valuable knowledge regarding the consequences of natural disasters on the moment-to-moment cognition that is critical when responding to a disaster. Prior research studies have noted the relationship between working memory and long-term memory as predictors of fluid intelligence, or the ability to detect patterns and solve new problems in the moment, with working memory accounting for unique variance in fluid intelligence. In the current study, the longitudinal association of working memory, sustained attention, long-term memory, and fluid intelligence will provide further evidence of the critical role that working memory plays in fluid intelligence, and will significantly extend prior research by assessing the relationship between these objective measures of cognition and self-appraisals of functioning and sleep disruption in daily life. Additionally, the research team will measure these variables in three groups of participants that vary in degree of flood-related impact and prior losses from previous hurricanes in the South Louisiana region. The research will further consider how adults across the lifespan may show different effects of such disaster-related stress on cognitive functioning. With respect to broader societal impacts, the proposed research will yield critical new evidence to inform understanding of the time course of cognitive vulnerability and recovery after single and multiple disaster exposures.
