Effects of age and naturally occurring experience on spatial visualization performance.

Salthouse, Timothy A.; Mitchell, Debora R. D.

doi:10.1037/0012-1649.26.5.845

Cited by 93 publications

(57 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…A number of investigators have argued that increases in the time that it takes a given cohort to process information may affect their performance not only on speeded tasks, but also on a number ofother tasks in which speed is not so obviously a factor (Hertzog, 1989;Salthouse, 1991;Salthouse, Kausler, & Saults, 1988;Salthouse & Mitchell, 1990;Schaie, 1989). For example, Salthouse (1996) finds that basic measures of processing speed predict much ofthe variability in the performance of older adults on tests of memory for paired associates.…”

Section: Latent Models: Speed-related Influencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Molar and latent models of cognitive slowing: Implications for aging, dementia, depression, development, and intelligence

Fisher

Glaser

1996

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

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Section: Latent Models: Speed-related Influencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Molar and latent models of cognitive slowing: Implications for aging, dementia, depression, development, and intelligence

Fisher

Glaser

1996

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

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“…Mean standard scores by age decade for six cognitive measures. Data for the free-recall and paired associates tasks are from Salthouse (1993b), data for the Wisconsin Card Sorting and Shipley Abstraction tasks are from Salthouse, Fristoe, and Rhee (in press), and data for the Surface Development and Paper Folding tasks are from Salthouse and Mitchell (1990).…”

Section: Empirically Based Constraintsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Constraints on theories of cognitive aging

Salthouse

1996

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

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There is currently little consensus regarding what must be explained by theories of cognitive aging. In the present article, four empirical generalizations that seem to imply certain constraints in theorizing are identified. These generalizations, and their possible implications or constraints, are that (1) age-related differences are found in a wide range of cognitive variables, implying that either a large number of specific factors or a small number of general factors must be contributing to the agerelated differences; (2) the age-related influences on different cognitive variables are not independent, and unique age-related influences appear to be few in number and small in magnitude, implying that some fairly general factors need to be postulated to account for the shared age-related influences; (3) only a small proportion of distinct age-related variance occurs late in practice and at long presentation durations, implying that adequate explanations must include factors operating when the individuals are just beginning to perform the task and when the stimuli can first be registered; and (4) measures of how quickly very simple cognitive tasks can be performed share considerable age-related variance with many cognitive variables, implying that factors related to simple processing efficiency need to be incorporated into the explanations.Research concerned with the relations between adult age and cognitive performance has been increasing dramatically over the last several decades. Despite the rapid expansion of research, however, there is still little consensus regarding the reasons for the negative relations that are typically reported between chronological age and the measures of memory, reasoning, and spatial ability sometimes referred to as comprising Type A (Hebb, 1942) or fluid (Horn & Cattell, 1963) cognition. The primary purpose of this article is to describe several sets ofempirical results that appear to place important constraints on theoretical explanations of age-related cognitive decline phenomena.It is helpful to begin by describing the broad phenomenon in need ofexplanation by theories ofcognitive aging. Consider the distribution of scores on a cognitive test, such as immediate free recall of a list of unrelated words. In a recent experiment (Salthouse, 1993b), a total of305 adults between 19 and 84 years of age attempted to remember two 12-word lists (presented auditorily at a rate of 1 word every 2 sec), and their average scores across the two lists ranged from near zero to perfect (top panel of Figure I). Because the sample included people of different ages, the distribution can be disaggregated by age. That is, the individuals can be ordered by their ages, and then the scores plotted by age (as in the bottom panel of Figure 1). This type of disaggregation typically results in considerable variability at each age, but with an average This research was supported by National Institute on Aging Grant R37 AG6826 to T.A.S. I would like to thank three reviewers for their constructive comments on a...

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“…In nearly all other cognitive domains, younger adults outperform older adults on psychometric ability tests, as well as on tasks that assess more basic processes, such as speed of processing or working memory (Salthouse, 1991(Salthouse, , 1992(Salthouse, , 1994. The contrast between the relative performance of younger and older American adults in arithmetic in comparison with other ability domains (e.g., spatial ability; e.g., Salthouse & Mitchell, 1990) provides a potentially useful background for contrasting age-related performance differences on ability measures across the United States and East Asian nations.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Are East Asian versus American differences in arithmetical ability a recent phenomenon?

Geary

Salthouse²,

Chen³

et al. 1996

Developmental Psychology

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Younger and older American and Chinese adults were administered arithmetic, perceptual speed, and spatial orientation tests. For the perceptual speed and spatial orientation tests, the younger adults showed substantial performance advantages over the older adults in both the United States and China. For the arithmetic tests, the younger Chinese adults outperformed the older Chinese adults, but the groups of younger and older American adults had comparable arithmetical abilities. Cross-national comparisons indicated that the younger Chinese adults outperformed the younger American adults on the arithmetic tests, but not on the perceptual speed and spatial orientation tests. The performance of the older American and older Chinese adults was comparable for all of the ability measures. The overall pattern suggests that the advantage of Chinese adults over American adults in complex arithmetic might be a relatively recent phenomenon. The first systematic cross-national study of mathematical abilities was conducted in 1964 (Hus~n, 1967). The results of this study showed that American adolescents were among the most poorly educated students in mathematics in the industrialized world. In the ensuing 30 years, this basic finding has been replicated many times and has been shown to be true for nearly all mathematical domains, from arithmetic to complex mathematics (Crosswhite, Dossey, Swafford, McKnight, & Cooney, 1985; Lapointe, Mead, & Askew, 1992). Differences between the mathematical development of American children and children from other nations are often times most extreme when comparisons are made between the United States and East Asian nations (i.e., China, Korea, Taiwan, & Japan; e.g., Stevenson, Chen, & Lee, 1993; Stevenson et al., 1990)J The consistency of academic achievement differences between children from the United States and children from East Asian nations has led some scientists to argue that these differences stem

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Effects of age and naturally occurring experience on spatial visualization performance.

Cited by 93 publications

References 27 publications

Molar and latent models of cognitive slowing: Implications for aging, dementia, depression, development, and intelligence

Molar and latent models of cognitive slowing: Implications for aging, dementia, depression, development, and intelligence

Constraints on theories of cognitive aging

Are East Asian versus American differences in arithmetical ability a recent phenomenon?

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