Main description:

The Elements of Cognitive Aging provides a qualitative overview (mostly using graphical meta-analysis) of the vast literature on aging and speeded tasks-bringing together, for the first time, almost everything we know about aging and processing speed. The book investigates age-related slowing in elementary tasks (including updated parameters for the Aging Human Information Processor) and tasks of executive control (inhibition, task shifting, and task coordination).
It examines regularities in the age-related effects of these tasks that might hint at underlying brain-related mechanisms, while having a keen eye for alternative explanations (such as increased caution with age). It models the course of speed-of-processing over the lifespan and investigates the
influence of generational differences on mental speed. Finally, it examines the influence of age-related mental slowing on other aspects of cognition (working memory, executive control episodic memory, aspects of fluid intelligence), and provides the first systematic review of age-speed-cognition mediation in a longitudinal context.

Contents:

CHAPTER 1 ; AGING AND PROCESSING SPEED: HISTORY, METHODOLOGY, AND OUTLOOK ; CHAPTER 2 ; AGE-RELATED SLOWING IN A QUASI-RANDOM SAMPLE OF STUDIES ; CHAPTER 3 ; IS AGE-RELATED SLOWING REAL? ; INVESTIGATING THREATS TO THE VALIDITY OF BRINLEY SLOPES ; CHAPTER 4 ; THE AGING MODEL HUMAN PROCESSOR: ; AGE-RELATED DIFFERENCES IN THE SPEED OF ELEMENTARY OPERATIONS ; CHAPTER 5 ; TOWARDS A SPARSE ONTOLOGY OF AGE EFFECTS IN ELEMENTARY PROCESSES: ; THE DIMENSIONALITY OF THE AGING MODEL HUMAN PROCESSOR ; CHAPTER 6 ; AGE-RELATED DIFFERENCES IN THE SPEED OF EXECUTIVE CONTROL ; CHAPTER 7 ; LIFESPAN TRAJECTORIES ; CHAPTER 8 ; THE ROLE OF GENERATIONAL DIFFERENCES ; CHAPTER 9 ; AGE-RELATED SLOWING AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO COMPLEX ABILITIES ; CHAPTER 10 ; THE ELEMENTS OF COGNITIVE AGING: CONCLUSIONS ; REFERENCES ; INDEX