Individual differences in cognitive functioning in the elderly - phenomena and interpretation

Residents (N = 27) of a Jewish home for the aged were given a battery of twenty-five tests of cognitive abilities. Participants included people carrying a diagnosis of organic brain syndrome. Subsets of tests were designed to measure immediate sequential memory, ability to handle categories, and ability to execute motor patterns. There were marked individual differences among participants. Poorer performance was associated with carrying a diagnosis of organic brain syndrome and with a number of other background variables. There was empirical evidence that immediate sequential memory and ability to handle categories can be discriminatively measured. A wide variety of qualitative behavioral phenomena was described. The findings were interpreted in terms of an information-processing model.