The processing-speed theory of adult age differences in cognition

“Salthouse hypothesized two mechanisms by which speed has a limiting effect on cognition (46).”

“…to accuracy permits a more complete investigation of quantitative and qualitative differences in binding competence in older individuals, and is a particularly relevant parameter in studies on ageing given that slowing of cognitive processes is a hallmark of this condition (Salthouse, 1996).”

“Extensive evidence indicates age-related declines in speed of processing (e.g., Salthouse, 1996), and previous testing with this procedure has indicated that these presentation times equate depth of processing during encoding for younger and older adults (Murray et al., 2011, Experiments 3 and 4).”

“Older adults’ memory deficits may be attributed to general slowing of encoding operations (Salthouse, 1996).”

“reasoning, memory, information-processing speed) results in an increasing risk of functional difficulties, such as difficulties in everyday problem solving and speed of processing (Mienaltowski, 2011; Salthouse, 1996).”

“Age-related slowing of cognitive processing has been proposed to underlie age-related declines within various domains of cognition (44).”

“Most intriguingly, individual differences in processing speed have often been found to substantially mediate the relationship between age and fluid intelligence both in cross-sectional (Salthouse 1996) and in longitudinal studies (Finkel et al. 2007; Robitaille et al. 2013).”

“Attempts to explain people’s differences in intelligence and cognitive ageing often hypothesize that they are founded substantially upon differences in speed of information processing [1].”

“Age-related cognitive changes that mediate declines in episodic memory include a reduction in the speeds of all cognitive processes (Salthouse, 1996), declines in basic processing resources such as attentional capacity (Rabinowitz, Craik, & Ackerman, 1982), and reduced ability to inhibit distracting information (e.”

“Various attributes which mediate age-related performance declines have been identified, such as processing speed (Salthouse, 1996), attention (Salthouse, 1988), or working”

“This is in accord with the processing speed theory (Salthouse, 1996), which suggests that ageing is associated with slower execution of cognitive functions.”

“This proposal receives further support by numerous studies that confirm an age-related decrease in speed of information processing in general, (Salthouse 1996, 2000) as well as for different cognitive functions, such as working memory (Sander et al. 2012) and divided attention (Park et al. 1989).”

“These studies have been motivated, at least partially, by the proposal that reduced processing speed underlies many cognitive performance differences with aging (Cerella, 1985; Salthouse, 1996).”

“Continuous attention was assessed by a task designed by Talland (1966). This task was also called Rapid Visual Information Processing by other authors (e.”

“Its duration is usually longer in elderly subjects than in younger ones, resulting in higher TOT values because of overlapping age-related declines in both timing and mental activity [5–8].”

“This disadvantage could come about in several ways: Processing might be generally slower for older adults (e.g., Salthouse, 1996), older adults might be more limited in their attentional resources (e.g., Craik, 1983), older adults might have less capacity in short-term memory (e.g., Hasher & Zacks,…”

“…adulthood has been associated with a general decline in cognitive functioning that includes reductions in capacities such as processing speed (Salthouse, 1996), attentional resources (Craik, 1983), inhibitory control (Hasher, Stoltzfus, Zacks, & Rypma, 1991), and both long-term and working…”

“The field aims to understand how brain structure and activity is linked to cognitive processes including attention [12], memory (short-term, working, and long-term memory) [13], executive function [14], language [15], visuospatial skills [16], processing speed [17], and social cognition [18].”

“This finding supports the hypothesis of a general slowing of information processing during cognitive aging, probably caused by age itself and age-associated comorbidities such as cardiovascular disease.(13,47) On multivariate analysis, variables related to severity of HIV infection, such as current and nadir CD4 cell…”

“One of the most thoroughly researched is the speedofprocessinghypothesis (a.k.a. processing speed hypothesis; Ball et al., 2004; Birren et al., 1980; Salthouse, 1996).”

“, Sjögren et al. 1996). It has been argued that elderly drivers normally have problems with one of the component abilities, such as perception, attention, information processing abilities, motor performance or tactical skills or a combination of some of these factors, which affect driving performance and the risk of h…”

“…in perceptual decision tasks and result in a lower decision boundary, one primary finding in aging is that RTs in cognitive tasks increase as people age, and this generalized slowing is sometimes coupled with impairments in accuracy (Cerella, 1985, 1991; Fisk and Warr, 1996; Salthouse, 1996).”

“To date, most information about age-related cognitive change and explanatory models of such change has been based on cross-sectional designs and analyses of BP differences (see reviews by Salthouse, 1996; Verhaeghen & Salthouse, 1997).”

“Elderly people might experience a decline in several cognitive functions such as memory [2], attention [3], executive functions [4,5], and processing speed [6].”

“Slowing for older adults has been interpreted as a deficit such that, for example, cognitive operations are not fully completed in the available time and so the products of earlier operations are not fully available to later operations (e.g., Salthouse, 1996).”

“Other studies have found performance to be stable across age, or have related observed decline to a more general slowing of information processing (Salthouse, 1996; Verhaeghen, 2011; Verhaeghen & De Meersman, 1998; Wheatley, Scialfa, Boot, Kramer, & Alexander, 2012; Zysset, Schroeter, Neumann, &…”

“The processing-speed theory as proposed by Salthouse (1996) states that adult age differences in performance in many cognitive tasks can be explained at least partly by a single mechanism, namely, an age-related decrease in processing speed (PS).”

“We also examined processing speed because this variable is often considered as a basic cognitive resource, which is not only crucial in most cognitive processes (Kail & Salthouse, 1994) but is also responsible for age-related decline (Salthouse, 1996).”

“Age and education are key variables known to influence cognitive function (Salthouse, 1996) and gender was included as a standard demographic variable.”

“hierarchical Multiple regression analyses Given the moderate to large effect size when testing for differences in age and education levels between groups, and the known influence of age and education levels on speed outcomes (43, 44), hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted separately for clinical and…”

“Salthouse (1996). the processing speed theory of adult ge differences in cognition.”

“Processing speed is related to the rate with which many elementary cognitive operations can be executed (Salthouse 1996).”

“This is a measure of perceptual speed that is highly reliable (Lindenberger, Mayr, & Kliegl, 1993), loads highly on general intelligence (Salthouse, 1996), is more sensitive to cognitive decline in old age than many other cognitive abilities (Hoyer, Stawski, Wasylyshyn, & Verhaeghen, 2004), and has…”

“Specifically, Salthouse (1996) proposed that older adults have impairments in two interconnected mechanisms relating to processing speed, i.e., a limited time mechanism, and a simultaneity mechanism, which together underlie the deficits observed in higher-order cognitive abilities.”

“The physical condition has similar attentional and working memory demands to the other conditions, but no mentalizing component, and therefore is well-suited as a baseline condition to control for age-related declines in processing speed (Salthouse, 1996).”

“For example, processing speed has been suggested as an important mediator of changes in cognition throughout the lifespan (e.g., Salthouse, 1996; Nettelbeck and Burns, 2010; Gilsoul et al., 2019).”

“For example, aging impairs efficiency and processing speed (Salthouse, 1994, 1996; Li et al., 2004), explicit learning (Salthouse, 2006), working memory (Salthouse, 1992; McArdle et al., 2004), and attention and problem-solving (Craik and Salthouse, 2000).”

“One source of ambiguity is the possibility that global, age-related declines in processing speed, rather than EF specifically, might better explain patterns of cognitive aging (Salthouse, 1996).”

“Both working memory and speed of processing show greater variability in older than in young subjects [Salthouse, 1996], suggesting that the larger variability seen in deficit-lesion correlational studies than in activation studies may be related to greater differences in these functional…”

“Although older adults are handicapped by declines in processing (e.g., Myerson et al., 1990; Pratt, Boyes, Robins, & Manchester, 1989; Salthouse, 1996), they are also more likely to focus on the deeper meaning of stories, recalling them more succinctly in accordance with a focus on meaning and integration.”

“…2011 | Volume 2 | Article 132 | 1 Original research article published: 20 June 2011 doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00132 after various measures were taken to control for general slowing in old age (Cerella, 1990; Myerson et al., 1990; Salthouse, 1996), indicating disproportionate age-related decrements.”

“Answer : Perceptual speed has been measured with tasks like digit-symbol substitution and alphanumeric-string comparison (Salthouse, 1996).”

“…wide range of abilities and skills in different domains of intellectual functioning have been documented, e.g., for fluid intelligence (e.g., Kausler, 1994; Lindenberger & Baltes, 1994; Mayer & Baltes, 1996; Salthouse, 1991; Schaie, 1996) and speed of information processing (e.g., Salthouse, 1996).”

“However, these findings are not consistent over studies (Baddeley, Baddeley, Bucks, & Wilcock, 2001; Fisk & Warr, 1996; Logie et al., 2004; Salthouse, 1996; Tun & Wingfield, 1994; Verhaeghen & De Meersman, 1998).”

“Furthermore, aging effects have been observed in oculomotor function, specifically in processing speed, spatial memory, and inhibitory control (Salthouse, 1996; Peltsch et al., 2011; Crawford et al., 2017).”

“Declines in the effectiveness of deliberative processes such as working memory, executive control, and processing speed are the most common changes in cognitive ability associated with age (Park et al., 2002; Salthouse, 1994, 1996; Salthouse & Meinz, 1995).”

“As an additional measure of the ability of DTImeasures to explain age-related motor declines, a hierarchical regression analysis (Rosenberger et al., 2008; Salthouse, 1996) was used to measure the amount of variance in the age-related motor control measures that is explained by the DTI metrics.”

“A a t v L r i v s s b r p a a b e a l i a b h a t p t b t areas that were additionally activated by elderly (Grön et al., 2003; Grady, McIntosh, & Craik, 2005; Madden, Gottlob et al., 1999; McIntosh et al., 1999).”

“Thus, a recent study in which listening costs associated with shifts in spatial attention were tested in a dynamic multi-speaker environment emphasized the role of working memory in maintaining goal-relevant information and meaning extraction (Lin and Carlile, 2015).”

“If the ‘common cause’ hypothesis holds, we would expect to see consistent coupled changes in physical and cognitive markers, since the same domain-general ageing processes should be acting upon both.”

“It has been argued that slowed RT could be due to general cognitive slowing rather than specific slowing in syntactic processing (Salthouse, 1996; Kemmer et al., 2004).”

“Although behavioral slowing in older adults has been demonstrated in a number of different reaction time (RT) tasks (Hunter, Thompson, & Roger, 2001; Morgan et al., 1994; Salthouse, 1991, 1996), the particular mechanisms underlying age-related RT delays are poorly understood.”

“First, it was evidenced that older adults were more slowed in task completion than were younger adults, echoing ubiquitous findings in the literature (for an in-depth analysis of findings illustrating age-related declines in speed of processing operations, see Salthouse, 1996 ).”

“free of clinical impairment), to differences in brain network architecture, particularly alterations in frontal cortical function, that are due to the aging process [1–6].”

“So far, only few theoretical accounts have been put forward to explain lifelong changes in cognitive abilities (e.g., Baltes, 1987; Craik & Bialystok, 2006; Li & Baltes, 2006; Salthouse, 1996).”

“General slowing with age was reported by Salthouse (1996).”

“Some measures exhibit monotonic changes as a function of age, such as reductions in processing speed inferred from behavioral measures [6,58] and latency of certain brain potentials (P300) [21,27,46] .”

“of word knowledge involved in the task increases, the magnitude of the effect decreases (Salthouse, 1996).”

“In Processing Speed theory (Salthouse, 1985; 1996), the slower baseline speed of responding systematically shown by older participants on cognitive tasks is assumed to be Chapter 2: Contextual Cuing in Older Adults 54 indicative of general slowing.”

“However, PS did not affect the decline in the ability to benefit from increased encoding specificity, which seems inconsistent with Salthouse (1996a) simultaneity mechanism.”

“Information processing speed is a fundamental cognitive ability in neuropsychological theories on “normal” cognitive development and “normal” cognitive aging (Fry & Hale, 1996, 2000; Kail, 2000, 2007; Salthouse, 1996; Sheppard & Vernon, 2008).”

“Classical theories of aging and cognition (Albert & Kaplan, 1980) posit that age has its greatest effect on fluid intelligence, which includes new learning, visuospatial skills, and executive functioning, with the decrements mediated by declines in processing speed (Salthouse, 1996).”