Does it all go together when it goes? The Nineteenth Bartlett Memorial Lecture.

P. Rabbitt

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    As groups of people age, the differences in the cognitive abilities of the most and least able become more extreme. This increase in between-individual variance is accompanied by an increase in within-individual variance: the difference between individuals' levels of performance on their best and least well retained skills. The implications of increasing between-individual variance are discussed in terms of the range of different factors that may affect cognitive ageing. Increases in within-individual variance are discussed in terms of differences between "fluid" and "crystallized" abilities. The usefulness of this distinction and its functional implications are questioned. The hypothesis that age-related declines in "fluid" abilities are best modelled in terms of declines in a single factor is evaluated. Evidence is presented of disparate rates of decline, even of "fluid" cognitive abilities, such as performance on IQ tests, ability on information-processing tasks, and efficiency on memory tasks. Data from large-scale cross-sectional studies suggests that cognitive skills do not "all go together when they go," but that there may rather, be characteristic patterns, or syndromes, of cognitive ageing.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)385-434
    Number of pages49
    JournalQuarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A: Human Experimental Psychology
    Volume46
    Issue number3
    Publication statusPublished - Aug 1993

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