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.

About the Author
Associate Professor of Psychology, Syracuse University

Reviews
"This excellent book provides an elegant account of the elements of cognitive aging that will likely set the stage for future research and theory in the field. Paul Verhaeghen carries out meta-analytic reviews of practically all of the available findings on age-related differences in the speed and accuracy of cognitive processing. From his comprehensive treatment of the available data in the field, he carefully extracts the essential principles or elements of cognitive aging. The outcome is an empirically based overview and framework that will be highly useful, if not essential, to the conceptualization of much of the new research and theory in the field of cognitive aging. This book is likely to become a classic in the field of cognitive aging and the go-to source for a summary of the essential findings." William J. Hoyer, Professor of Psychology, Syracuse University "People who know Paul Verhaeghen are invariably impressed by his creativity, and by his sense of humor. Both of these qualities are evident in this book as he elegantly describes the rich and powerful inferences that can be derived from rigorous quantitative integrations of the results of many small-scale studies." Timothy Salthouse, Brown-Forman Professor of Psychology, University of Virginia



Book Information
ISBN 9780195368697
Author Paul Verhaeghen
Format Hardback
Page Count 376
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 1g
Dimensions(mm) 163mm * 236mm * 23mm