The effect of cognitive leisure activities on cognitive reasoning among the elderly individuals: The mediating role of need for cognition

Although there is evidence that cognitive training enhances logical reasoning among the elderly, it remains unclear whether cognitive leisure activities (LA), which are inherently enjoyable and more accessible to older adults than cognitive training, can also improve their reasoning performance. Accordingly, we investigated the effect of cognitive LA on reasoning performance among the elderly and further explored the potential mechanism underlying this relationship. 107 elder participants from the community university for the elderly were randomized into two intervention groups (mahjong group N = 34, chess groups N = 33) and the control group (N = 40). Subjects in the intervention groups received activity sessions three times a week for 6 weeks, while those in the control group received regular physical and mental health care sessions. Need for cognition (NFC) was evaluated using the NFC scale before the study and then after intervention administration. Additionally, all participants were tasked to completing a syllogistic reasoning task after the intervention to evaluating their reasoning performances. Results showed that the intervention groups performed better than the control group in the syllogistic reasoning task. Moreover, there were no significant differences in the scores of NFC between the intervention groups and control group in the pretest, while the scores of NFC of the intervention groups were significantly higher than those of the control group in the posttest. Mediation analysis revealed that NFC mediated the effect of cognitive LA on reasoning performances among the elderly. We concluded that participating in cognitive LA represent a potential avenue for enhancing reasoning performances among older adults by boosting their cognitive motivation.