Cognition and Aging

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Cognition and Aging
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Some questions...

• What is intelligence?
• How should it be measured?
• How does it change?

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Issues in IQ research

• Defining intelligence
• Multiple or single intelligences?

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Dual Process Model
Pragmatics/Crystallized
cultural knowledge
Performance
Mechanics/Fluid
Information processing Capacity
Ca. 25
Ca. 70
Age
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www.secretsofaging.org

• mind section
• Developed by the Boston Museum of Science

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Evidence for a dual-process model?

• Part 1 Evidence that IQ test performance has
  two components

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Evidence for a dual-process model?

• Part 1 Evidence that IQ test performance has
  two components
• Part 2 Evidence that these components change
  differently with age

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Correlations between mechanics, pragmatics, and
physiological or experience variables
Point For mechanics, correlations are higher
with physical variables for pragmatics,
correlations are higher with experience variables
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IQ Changes with age
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Is it age? Cohort effects
If cohorts are getting successively better, then
of COURSE younger adults in a cross-sectional
study are going to be better.
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Longitudinal Findings
Exception is speed
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Stability, Growth or Decline?

• The decrementalist view of cognitive development
• Childhood?Growth Aging?Decline

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Stability, Growth or Decline?

• The decrementalist view of cognitive development
• Childhood?Growth Aging?Decline
• The continued potential view
• Some lifelong cognitive skills may continue to
  improve with age
• Some new cognitive abilities may emerge

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The Continued Potential View

• 1. Adult life-span learning
• 2. Quantitative vs. qualitative change
• 3. Expertise
• How pragmatics make up for declines in mechanics

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Expertise contd

• Defined Domain specific knowledge
• Developing expertise

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Expertise contd

• Defined Domain specific knowledge
• Developing expertise
• Positives Negatives

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Expertise contd

• Pianists (Rubinstein)

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Expertise contd

• Pianists (Rubinstein)
• Typists (Salthouse)
• ABCs

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Expertise contd

• Pianists (Rubinstein)
• Typists (Salthouse)
• Chess players (Charness)

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Expertise contd

• Pianists (Rubinstein)
• Typists (Salthouse)
• Chess players (Charness)
• Learning (Shimamura)

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On speedprofessors are normal
Their speed declines like normal community people
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But on reading comprehension...
Their abilities are preserved.
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4. Creativity

• Creativity does not equal intelligence

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4. Creativity

• Creativity does not equal intelligence
• Creativity can be hard to recognize

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Approaches to Creativity

• Psychometric

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A sample divergent thinking taskImpossible
Situations
Imagine clouds could be tied down with strings.
How could that be useful?
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Psychometric Approaches Age

• Creativity declines with age (but)

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Approaches to Creativity

• Product-focused
• Biographical approaches

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Approaches to Creativity

• Product-focused
• Biographical approaches
• Issues quantity vs. quality
• Likelihood of major work emerging

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Quantity, Quality, Age
Peak age varies by profession For musicians
45-49 (for overall works)
Number (or Ratio)
Ratio of quality to quantity
Sheer Number
Age
Work by Simonton
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Age, Creativity, Profession
Different professions demand different tradeoffs
of experience and enthusiasm (or, in some
cases, mechanics). Hence, youd expect
differences in the age pattern with different
careers
In later work, Simonton has shown that some of
the humanities yield very high quality work at
much older ages (e.g., 50s)
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What about Swan Songs?

• Are peoples last works likely to be among their
  best contributions?
• Constant ratio of quality to quantity means
• Possible for the best work to emerge in end of
  career
• More likely for it to emerge at the middle
  (during peak overall productivity).

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Some notable late life achievements
Source Hoyer, Rybash, Roodin
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Approaches to Creativity

• Process focused approaches
• Csikszentmihalyis ideas about flow