Shifting Levels of Analysis in the Investigation of Cognitive Aging

Salthouse, Timothy A.

doi:10.1159/000277253

Cited by 49 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Unfortunately, the nature of any systemic effect that might exist is not obvious, except that it does not appear to be related to the effectiveness of memory control as assessed with the measures examined in this study. Nevertheless, an intriguing implication of this perspective is that, as has been suggested for at least 15 years (e.g., Salthouse, 1992), the null hypothesis in research on aging and cognition should no longer be that there are no age differences, but rather that there are no age differences beyond those shared with other cognitive abilities. The reasons for the relations among cognitive variables and abilities are still not well understood, but they are very well-established, as are the age-related influences on them.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An individual differences analysis of memory control

Salthouse

Siedlecki

Krueger

2006

Journal of Memory and Language

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Performance on a wide variety of memory tasks can be hypothesized to be influenced by processes associated with controlling the contents of memory. In this project 328 adults ranging from 18 to 93 years of age performed six tasks (e.g., multiple trial recall with an interpolated interference list, directed forgetting, proactive interference, and retrieval inhibition) postulated to yield measures of the effectiveness of memory control. Although most of the patterns from earlier studies were replicated, only a few of the measures of memory control were reliable at the level of individual differences. Furthermore, the memory control measures had very weak relations with the age of the participant. Analyses examining the relations between established cognitive abilities and variables from the experimental tasks revealed that most of the variables were related only to episodic memory ability.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An individual differences analysis of memory control

Salthouse

Siedlecki

Krueger

2006

Journal of Memory and Language

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“…Instead of treating cognitive measures as if they exist in isolation, therefore, these findings imply that it may be reasonable, following a suggestion by Salthouse (1992), to reconceptualize the null hypothesis in research on aging and cognition from "no age differences" to "no age differences beyond those shared with other cognitive abilities." Interim summary.…”

Section: Investigating Unique Age Differencesmentioning

confidence: 97%

Contributions of the Individual Differences Approach to Cognitive Aging

Salthouse

2016

GERONB

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Objective: To review selected research in cognitive aging incorporating an individual differences approach. Method: Three contributions of the individual differences perspective in cognitive aging are illustrated with data from the Virginia Cognitive Aging Project. Results: Research capitalizing on the variability among individuals has been used to: (a) improve sensitivity and validity of measurement of cognitive functioning, and evaluate possible age differences in the meaning of the measures; (b) investigate relations between age and individual cognitive measures in the context of other types of cognitive measures; and (c) examine the degree to which age-related influences on target measures are statistically independent of age-related influences on other cognitive measures. Discussion: Although the primary focus of much of the research in cognitive aging has been on mean differences between people of different ages, people differ in many respects besides age. A fundamental assumption of the individual differences perspective is that at least some of those differences may be informative about the nature, and causes, of the relations between age and cognitive functioning.

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“…That is, given certain assumptions, the relations between the mean levels of performance in two age groups may allow a distinction between common and unique age-related effects (Salthouse, 1992b(Salthouse, , 1992d. The rationale has been described as follows:…”

Section: Analyses Of Systematic Relationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The phenomenon to be explained is thus the age-related variation in behavior, and not the behavior itself (Salthouse, 1991c(Salthouse, , 1992d. Ultimately, of course, more comprehensive theories should encompass all dimensions of cognitive phenomena, but an explanation of the relations between adult age and Type A or fluid aspects of cognition is by itself an extremely formidable goal at the present time.…”

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The processing-speed theory of adult age differences in cognition.

Salthouse¹

1996

Psychological Review

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A theory is proposed to account for some of the age-related differences reported in measures of Type A or fluid cognition. The central hypothesis in the theory is that increased age in adulthood is associated with a decrease in the speed with which many processing operations can be executed and that this reduction in speed leads to impairments in cognitive functioning because of what are termed the limited time mechanism and the simultaneity mechanism. That is, cognitive performance is degraded when processing is slow because relevant operations cannot be successfully executed (limited time) and because the products of early processing may no longer be available when later processing is complete (simultaneity). Several types of evidence, such as the discovery of considerable shared age-related variance across various measures of speed and large attenuation of the age-related influences on cognitive measures after statistical control of measures of speed, are consistent with this theory.The purpose of the current article is to describe, and discuss the evidence relevant to, the processing-speed theory of cognitive aging phenomena. The fundamental assumption in the theory is that a major factor contributing to age-related differences in memory and other aspects of cognitive functioning is a reduction with increased age in the speed with which many cognitive operations can be executed (Salthouse, 1985b). In this article, discussion of evidence relevant to the theory is restricted to the adult portion of the life span, but the basic mechanism may be relevant across the entire life span because similar ideas have been proposed by Kail (e.g., 1986Kail (e.g., , 1991Kail & Park, 1992) regarding the development of cognitive functioning during childhood.Because the success of a theory cannot be evaluated if the goal one hopes to achieve is never clearly specified, I begin by briefly describing the phenomenon that the present theory is intended to explain. Some of the best-documented findings in the literature on aging and cognition are the age-related differences in Type A (Hebb, 1942) or fluid (Cattell, 1943;Horn, 1982;Horn & Cattell, 1963) cognition, which include a wide variety of measures of memory, reasoning, and spatial abilities. The relations between age and cognition have been well documented since the earliest mental testing of adults (e.g., Foster & Taylor, 1920;Jones & Conrad, 1933), and they are readily apparent in the results from the standardization data in psychometric and neuropsychological test batteries (e.g., see Salthouse, 1991c, chap. 2, for a review). Because the samples for the standardization data in these test batteries are typically large and representative, and because the performance measures are Preparation of this article was supported by National Institute on Aging Grant R37 AG06826.1 would like to thank John Dunlosky, Julie Earles, Dan Fisk, Leah Light, Ulman Lindenberger, and David Madden for helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.Correspondence concerning this article sho...

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Shifting Levels of Analysis in the Investigation of Cognitive Aging

Cited by 49 publications

References 10 publications

An individual differences analysis of memory control

An individual differences analysis of memory control

Contributions of the Individual Differences Approach to Cognitive Aging

The processing-speed theory of adult age differences in cognition.

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