[...]... often published in different journals One 10 Major Issues in Cognitive Aging of the goals of the current book is to attempt to integrate some of the major research findings concerned with cognitive aging from all five of these approaches Early Themes Two broad themes about cognitive aging have been apparent from the beginning of research on this topic The first theme is that different cognitive variables...This page intentionally left blank Major Issues in Cognitive Aging This page intentionally left blank 1 Relations between Age and Cognitive Functioning Major issue: What are the relations between age and cognitive functioning? Related questions: Are there different age trends for different types of cognitive variables? Do the individual differences in cognitive functioning become greater with increased... indicate that age-related declines in average level of performance can occur in the absence of sizable increases in betweenperson variability Relations between age and cognitive functioning therefore do not seem to be a consequence of only some people declining with many others remaining stable, because that would result in an increase in variability that is typically not found.16 Another interesting... does age-related cognitive decline begin? How large are the age-related effects? Is age kinder to the initially more able? The well-recognized demographic changes related to population aging have led to increased interest in all aspects of aging, cognitive as well as physical In this book the focus is on mental, or cognitive, aspects It is noteworthy that negative views about the cognitive abilities... according to the type of cognitive ability that is primarily studied, according to the age range of the individuals included in the studies, and according to whether the research involves cross-sectional or longitudinal comparisons In fact, an argument could be made that three subfields of cognitive aging might be distinguished based on differences in the backgrounds of the research teams, the dominant... interesting point to consider is that to the extent that there was an age-related increase in between-person variability, then other things being equal, the magnitude of the correlations between age and scores on the various tests would be expected to decrease with increasing age That is, an increase in the individual difference variance not related to age would mean 22 Major Issues in Cognitive Aging WAIS... anything new Disinterested curiosity is past, the cognitive grooves and channels set, the power of assimilation gone Whatever individual exceptions might be cited to these are of the sort that ‘prove the rule.’ ’’1 However, more optimistic views about cognitive aging have also been frequently expressed To illustrate, Solon in about 600 BC was quoted as 3 4 Major Issues in Cognitive Aging saying that... ‘‘I grow old ever learning new things.’’ Responding to early findings reporting age-related cognitive declines, a researcher in 1927 wrote that ‘‘Even if these tentative results point to the actual limitations of the establishment of new associations in age, they do not yet prove that learning capacity ever completely ceases in the average case.’’2 Another early researcher on aging wrote that ‘‘ no... again there is no indication of a systematic pattern of increasing correlation with increasing age.17 The third set of correlations in Figure 1.16 are between two measures of perceptual speed These correlations do appear to increase somewhat with increasing age, which suggests that taskspecific influences in assessments of perceptual speed may become less salient with increased age, thereby resulting... and only a few minutes can be devoted to each individual This research tradition often limits the assessment to very general aspects of cognitive functioning, but the samples in epidemiological studies can be very large, frequently in the thousands The preceding taxonomy is only one way of organizing approaches to research in cognitive aging, and other classification schemes could certainly be proposed . Brain? R. Passingham 47. Visual Reflections M. McCloskey 48. Principles of Visual Attention C. Bundesen and T. Habekost 49. Major Issues in Cognitive Aging T. A. Salthouse Major Issues in Cognitive Aging Timothy. 35 Chapter 3 Approaches to Investigating Cognitive Aging 66 Chapter 4 Mediators and Moderators of Cognitive Aging 98 Chapter 5 Normal and Pathological Cognitive Aging in Late Adulthood 127 Chapter. examples of cognitive tasks used in the assessment of cognitive functioning of adults. 8 Major Issues in Cognitive Aging Neuropsychological researchers are typically not interested in the relations that