Cognitive Competence and Expertise in Aging

Salthouse, Timothy A.

doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-101280-9.50024-3

Cited by 119 publications

(103 citation statements)

References 7 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Many older adults live healthy and active lives; indeed, many of the most influential positions in our society are held by older adults, suggesting that their decision making can remain intact despite cognitive declines. 95,96 Nonetheless, poor risk judgment or decision making processes among older adults are particularly worrisome because these individuals have less time and physical resilience to recover from the "normal" ups and downs of everyday decision outcomes. 26 Reliable and valid assessment of individuals' decision-making under uncertainty is needed to help predict real-world functioning and to determine what decision support is needed, if any.…”

Section: A Note Of Cautionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emotion, affect, and risk communication with older adults: challenges and opportunities

Finucane

2008

Journal of Risk Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Recent research suggests that emotion, affect, and cognition play important roles in risk perception and that their roles in judgment and decision-making processes may change over the lifespan. This paper discusses how emotion and affect might help or hinder risk communication with older adults. Currently, there are few guidelines for developing effective risk messages for the world's aging population, despite the array of complex risk decisions that come with increasing age and the importance of maintaining good decision making in later life. Age-related declines in cognitive abilities such as memory and processing speed, increased reliance on automatic processes, and adaptive motivational shifts toward focusing more on affective (especially positive) information mean that older and younger adults may respond differently to risk messages. Implications for specific risk information formats (probabilities, frequencies, visual displays, and narratives) are discussed and directions for future research are highlighted.

show abstract

Section: A Note Of Cautionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emotion, affect, and risk communication with older adults: challenges and opportunities

Finucane

2008

Journal of Risk Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…A second set of theoretical predictions about the age trajectory of everyday cognition may emerge if one views practical problem solving as a complex, "compiled" form of cognition (Salthouse, 1990). In this view, performance on practical tasks is the outcome of one's standing on the particular admixture of abilities needed for a particular task, including domain-specific knowledge acquired through experience and practice (e.g., Berry & Irvine, 1986; Marsiske & Willis, in press;Willis & Schaie, 1986).…”

Section: Nih-pa Author Manuscriptmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite over 7 decades of research on the aging of basic intelligence (e.g., Dixon, Kramer, & Baltes, 1985;Woodruff-Pak, 1989), little is known about how generalizable the findings from this literature are to the aging of everyday cognition. As Rabbitt (1977) and Salthouse (1990) noted, there is an intuitive paradox between older adults' reported difficulties with many laboratory tasks of cognition and the apparent efficacy with which they manage their everyday lives. The first step in resolving this paradox is to more clearly understand the kinds of tasks which do and do not evince performance disadvantages for older adults.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, the emergent prediction from some life span contextual models is that the normative developmental trajectory of everyday competence, as suggested by patterns of age-cohort differences, could be one of stability or increment under conditions of appropriate social-cultural support (e.g., P. B. Baltes, 1993). In a related vein, Denney (1989) argued that regularly practiced abilities (i.e., those frequently encountered in daily life) will decline relatively late in the adult life span because exercise or training abates age-related losses, perhaps by automatizing some performance components (see also Berg & Sternberg, 1985).A second set of theoretical predictions about the age trajectory of everyday cognition may emerge if one views practical problem solving as a complex, "compiled" form of cognition (Salthouse, 1990). In this view, performance on practical tasks is the outcome of one's standing on the particular admixture of abilities needed for a particular task, including domain-specific knowledge acquired through experience and practice (e.g., Berry & Irvine, 1986; Marsiske & Willis, in press;Willis & Schaie, 1986).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Dimensionality of everyday problem solving in older adults.

Marsiske¹,

Willis²

1995

Psychology and Aging

110

124

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study investigated individual differences in older adults' everyday problem-solving performance using 3 instruments. Past research, typically using only single measures, has yielded a multitude of findings regarding age effects in everyday problem solving. The present sample consisted of 111 older adults (44 men, 67 women) who ranged in age from 68 to 94 years. Confirmatory factor analyses revealed that, within each of the 3 instruments, subscales representing particular content domains could be reliably identified. There was, however, little relation between the different instruments, and the measures also differed in their relation with chronological age. These results support the view that everyday problem-solving competence is a multidimensional construct, of which previous investigations may only have studied particular dimensions.The goal of this study was to investigate how older adults' performance on everyday problem-solving tasks varies across methods of assessment. An increasing number of studies have focused on older adults' functioning on cognitive tasks of daily living (Hess, 1990;Poon, Rubin, & Wilson, 1989;Rogoff & Lave, 1984;Sinnott, 1989;Sinnott & Cavanaugh, 1991; Sternberg & Wagner, 1986), but most studies have considered performance only in delimited task domains, using single measures of performance. In addition, there has been little theoretical or empirical integration across studies of adult everyday problem solving. Several reasons exist for this. First, as a clearly identifiable subfield of inquiry, research into the everyday cognition of older adults is relatively new (Woodruff-Pak, 1989). Second, little consensus has been reached on what the defining task properties of everyday cognition might be and what the best methods for assessing these properties are. Indeed, even a standard nomenclature for distinguishing everyday cognition from other kinds of cognition does not yet exist; terms such as practical problem solving (Denney, 1989), everyday problem solving (Cornelius & Caspi, 1987), everyday cognition (Poon et al., 1989), pragmatics of intelligence (P. B. Baltes, 1987), and practical intelligence (Sternberg & Wagner, 1986), among others, have all been used. This diversity of labels, not surprisingly, reflects the even larger diversity of approaches that have evolved for the measurement of these constructs.Copyright 1995 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed Sherry L. Willis, Department of Human Development and Family Studies, S-110 Henderson Building, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, or Michael Marsiske, Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Education, Lentzeallee 94, 14195 Berlin, Germany. After July 31, 1995, Michael Marsiske's address will be the Institute for Gerontology, Wayne State University, 87 East Ferry Street, 226 Knapp Building, Detroit, Michigan 48202. Electronic mail should be sent via Internet to slw@psuvm.psu.edu or to marsiske@geroserver.iog...

show abstract

“…Although there are several theories of compensation (c.f. Baltes & Baltes, 1980, 1990Salthouse, 1987Salthouse, , 1990, a common aspect is the notion that although individual components of a skill might decline with age, it is possible for overall performance to remain the same because of an increased reliance on other aspects of performance. Put more simply, the theory suggests that skilled performers strategically compensate for a decline in one area by developing or improving in another.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Maintenance of Skilled Performance with Age: A Descriptive Examination of Professional Golfers

Baker¹,

Deakin²,

Horton³

et al. 2007

Journal of Aging and Physical Activity

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Demographic studies indicate a remarkable aging trend in North America. An accurate profile of the decline in physical and cognitive capabilities over time is essential to our understanding of the aging process. This study examined the maintenance of skilled performance across the careers of 96 professional golfers. Data were collected on scoring average, driving distance, driving accuracy, greens in regulation, putts per round, and number of competitive rounds played using online data archives. Analyses indicate that performance in this activity can be maintained to a greater extent than in activities relying on biologically constrained abilities. Although the generalizability of these results to “normal” aging populations is not known, they suggest that acquired skills can be maintained to a large extent in the face of advancing age.

show abstract

Cognitive Competence and Expertise in Aging

Cited by 119 publications

References 7 publications

Emotion, affect, and risk communication with older adults: challenges and opportunities

Emotion, affect, and risk communication with older adults: challenges and opportunities

Dimensionality of everyday problem solving in older adults.

Maintenance of Skilled Performance with Age: A Descriptive Examination of Professional Golfers

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About