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Aging and measures of processing speed
1School of Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332-0170, USA. salthouse@virginia.edu
Biological Psychology
|October 18, 2000
Summary
Processing speed in adulthood is influenced by general aging effects shared across many variables. Recent analytical methods reveal these shared influences account for substantial age-related variance in specific speed measures.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Gerontology
Background:
- Processing speed is a key cognitive function affected by adult aging.
- Distinguishing general (shared) from specific (unique) age-related effects on speed is theoretically important but methodologically challenging.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the relative contributions of general and specific age-related effects on processing speed variables.
- To apply novel analytical methods for partitioning age-related variance in cognitive measures.
Main Methods:
- Utilized analytical procedures designed to estimate the relative contributions of shared and unique age-related influences.
- Focused on partitioning age-related variance across multiple speed-related variables.
Main Results:
- A significant proportion of age-related variance in individual speed variables is shared with other variables.
- Evidence suggests that general age-related factors play a substantial role in processing speed decline.
Conclusions:
- General age-related effects significantly influence processing speed, with large proportions of variance being shared across different measures.
- These findings have implications for understanding psychophysiological and neurobiological changes associated with aging.