Stability and change in adult intelligence: 2. Simultaneous analysis of longitudinal means and covariance structures

We analyzed data on psychometric intelligence from the Seattle Longitudinal Study, simultaneously estimating longitudinal factors, their covariance structure, and their mean levels. Data on five Thurstone Primary Mental Abilities subtests were available for 412 adults, ages 22-70 at first test, who were tested three times at 7-year intervals. A previous longitudinal factor analysis had shown high stability of individual differences (covariance stability) in general intelligence for three adult age groups. We extended that model to estimate factor means. All three age groups showed high levels of covariance stability, but differed sharply in their mean profiles. The young group showed increasing levels of general intelligence, the middle-aged group had stable levels of intelligence, and the old group showed salient, approximately linear, decline. The patterns of stability in middle-age, followed by mean decline and high covariance stability in old age, suggest a normative developmental transition from a stability pattern to a decline pattern of general intelligence, with the inflection point occurring somewhere around age 60.