Age is not necessarily aging: another step towards understanding the "clocks" that time aging

Hofer and Sliwinski raise a critical concern regarding a popular practice in aging research of inferring associations among aging changes of different processes from correlations based on cross-sectional age differences. It is shown analytically that cross-sectional information drawn from age-heterogeneous samples is not suitable for answering questions about the interdependence between aging changes. While in general we agree with the problem pointed out by Hofer and Sliwinski, the two aims of this commentary are: (1) to highlight links between the specific concern and two long-standing issues confronting life-span researchers and (2) to introduce alternative approaches that are currently underutilized in gerontological research. We elaborate general issues with respect to challenges in inferring aging changes from age differences and using age as a proxy for aging. We show that several other sources of variance independent of rates of change, such as cohort- and mortality-related selection effects, are confounded in age-heterogeneous designs. We suggest general considerations for developing more explicit theories of cognitive aging in the future. Alternative research methods and paradigms for studying the causes and mechanisms of the aging mind at different time scales and levels are also highlighted. The role of chronological age in aging research is rather "superficial". To understand the underlying processes and mechanisms of cognitive aging, classical process-oriented, rather than solely age-oriented, theoretical conceptions need to be reconsidered and reified with new methodological and empirical advances. Concerted gerontological research endeavors utilizing recent progresses made in statistical analyses of dynamic processes and in cognitive and computational neurosciences that may lead to fruitful breakthroughs.