Investigation of student status, background variables, and feasibility of standard tasks in cognitive aging research

Data are reported on a variety of cognitive tasks from 62 college students and 362 nonstudent adults between 20 and 79 years of age. The goals of the project were as follows: (a) to investigate the validity of the practices of using college students and adults over age 65 in studies of cognitive aging, (b) to examine the influence of a variety of background variables on age trends in cognitive performance, and (c) to initiate the development of standard tasks to assist in the description of subject samples in cognitive aging research. The age trends in cognitive performance were relatively independent of an assortment of background variables, but because college students were atypical of their age group in several performance measures they may be suspect as the young-adult control subjects in investigations involving these types of measures. Adults over the age of about 65 appear to exhibit accelerated slowing of speeded performance, but in other respects perform about as one would expect on the basis of the age trends observed between the ages of 20 and 65.