The CANTAB battery was administered to a large group (n = 787) of elderly volunteers in the age range from 55 to 80 years. This battery, which is based on tests used to identify the neural substrates of learning and memory in non-human primates, has now been extensively used in the assessment of various forms of dementia and also validated on patients with neurosurgical lesions of the frontal and temporal lobes. The tests employed were pattern and spatial recognition, simultaneous and delayed matching to sample, learning of visuo-spatial paired associates, a matching to sample, reaction time task and a test of spatial working memory. The sample was banded into different IQ bands based on performance on 5 standard tests of intelligence. The MMSE was also administered to exclude cases of possible dementia (n = 16) in the normal sample. In general, performance declined with age and IQ, but these factors did not interact. A factor analysis (with varimax rotation) identified 4 factors with eigenvalues greater than 1, which accounted for over 60% of the variance. Factor 1 was equated with general learning and memory ability and loaded significantly with the Intelligence scores; factor 2 was related to speed of responding and loaded most heavily with Age. Comparisons were also made of performance on CANTAB of those subjects with dementing scores on the MMSE and the lowest 5th percentile of the population sample. The results are discussed in terms of the utility of the CANTAB battery for the assessment of dementia and of the implications for theories of changes in cognitive function during normal aging.

Several tests from the CANTAB neuropsychological test battery previously shown to be sensitive to frontal lobe dysfunction were administered to a large group of normal volunteers (N 5 341) ranging in age from 21 to 79 years. The main tests included a computerized form of the Tower of London test of planning, a self-ordered spatial working memory task, and a test of attentional set formation and shifting. A computerized form of the Corsi spatial span task was also given. Age-related graded declines in performance were seen, sometimes in a discontinuous manner, especially for the attentional set shifting task (at the extradimensional shift stage). Patterns of deficits reminiscent of frontal lobe or basal ganglia damage were observed in the oldest age group (74-79). However, overall the data were only partially consistent with the hypothesis that frontal lobe functions are the most sensitive to effects of aging. Factor analyses showed that performance in the executive tests was not simply related to a measure of fluid intelligence, and their performance had a factor loading structure distinct from that for the CANTAB tests of visual memory and learning previously administered to the same sample. Finally, only limited support was found for the hypothesis that cognitive aging depends on slowed information processing. (JINS, 1998, 4, 474-490.)

Interpretations of longitudinal studies of cognitive aging are misleading unless effects of practice and selective drop-out are considered. A random effects model taking practice and drop-out into account analyzed data from four successive presentations of each of two intelligence tests, two vocabulary tests, and two verbal memory tests during a 17-year longitudinal study of 5,899 community residents whose ages ranged from 49 to 92 years. On intelligence tests, substantial practice effects counteracted true declines observed over 3 to 5 years of aging and remained significant even with intervals of 7 years between successive assessments. Adjustment for practice and drop-out revealed accelerating declines in fluid intelligence and cumulative learning, linear declines in verbal free recall, and no substantial change in vocabulary. Socioeconomic status and basal levels of general fluid ability did not affect rates of decline. After further adjustment for demographics, variability between individuals was seen to increase as the sample aged.

walking, sedentary and transitory behaviours are distinct from each other, and together explain daily function. Further research on a larger sample is indicated to explore the characteristics that explain these behaviours, in particular the interplay between sedentary behaviour and periods of physical activity.

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A sample of 4,243 residents of Manchester, England and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, aged 50 to 93 years, completed the Beck Depression Scale (A.T. Beck, C.H. Ward, M. Mendelson, J. Mock, & J. Erbaugh, 1961) and a battery of 6 different cognitive tests. Beck scores were low, indicating gradations of dysphoria rather than clinical depression. Beck scores did not vary with age but were significantly higher for women than for men and for disadvantaged than for advantaged socioeconomic groups. Measures of fluid, but not of crystallized, ability declined as age increased. Socioeconomic disadvantage was associated with poorer performance on all cognitive tests. Men scored higher on a test of spatial reasoning, and women scored higher on a test of word definition and on 2 tests of verbal memory and learning. However, after variance associated with all these demographic and individual-difference variables was considered, and within a range indicative of dysphoria rather than clinical depression, higher Beck scores were associated with significantly poorer performance on both crystallized and fluid measures of cognitive ability. This association was less marked in women than in men, but age, socioeconomic advantage, and estimated lifetime intellectual ability did not act as protective or risk factors for vulnerability of cognitive processes to dysphoria.

Donald Broadbent's work in developing and validating his Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ) incidentally contributed to our understanding of what self-assessment questionnaires (SAQs) can tell us about the nature of cognitive changes that occur in old age, and their effects on people's everyday lives. The literature on use of SAQs in age comparisons is reviewed in the context of this work, as is new empirical evidence that older people complain of general loss of memory efficiency but, paradoxically, report fewer lapses than young adults on the CFQ and other SAQs. These new data provide a basis for discussion of the reliability and consistency of SAQs and of their validity as tools to explore a wide range of changes associated with cognitive ageing: objective changes in cognitive ability and in objective functional competence; changes in people's understanding of their own cognitive processes, in their knowledge of cognitive and mnemonic strategies, and in their abilities to make use of these strategies; the extent to which responses given by older and younger adults reflect emotional and personality variables such as depression, anxiety, neuroticism, extraversion, and perceived locus of control. Self-reports by elderly adults on the CFQ, and other SAQs, simultaneously provide so many different kinds of information about the changes they experience, and about their attitudes and adaptations to old age, that apparently straightforward analyses give misleading answers. Methodological precautions are suggested for determining which questions can, and are, being asked and which analyses may, and which cannot, answer them. Donald Broadbent understood that however thoughtfully laboratory tasks are designed a n d interpreted, they are not good predictors of performance in demanding work environments such as automobile production lines. To study individual differences in error-proneness in these complex situations, he developed an exceptionally well designed and standardized self-assessment questionnaire (SAQ), the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ: Broadbent, Cooper, Fitzgerald and Parkes, 1982). P. Rabbitt et al.During the next decade he and his associates used this questionnaire to discover what people's self-reports could tell them about their objective competence. For Cognitive Gerontologists, well designed SAQs (such as the CFQ) seem to be uniquely useful tools to discover what changes in cognitive efficiency people experience as they grow old, and how these changes affect their daily lives. However, experience has shown that interpretation of SAQ data is difficult because people's answers to SAQs simultaneously tell us a variety of very different things. They offer clues about their objective competencies and weaknesses, but also about their levels of self-confidence, anxiety, and depression; the extent of their knowledge and insight about their own abilities; their knowledge and beliefs about how their memories work; their insights into how they may improve their efficiency; and their relative vulnerabili...