The processing-speed theory of adult age differences in cognition

“2001), processing speed (Salthouse 1996), and executive functions (EFs) (Kramer et al.”

“Regarding age-cognition relations, we observed nonshared age effects in ZULU, which implies that cognitive aging researchers still need to place emphasis on the specific relations between age and component cognitive processes, not only on the association between age and a mediating variable, for example, processing sp…”

“Diverse factors that are considered to underlay the capacity limitations include: inhibitory mechanisms [44, 51], processing speed [47], domain-specific storage of information [16], limited amount of activation in the system [15, 28], etc.”

“…aging literature notes that there are age-related reductions in the ability to focus attention and inhibit irrelevant sources (Hasher and Zacks, 1988; for a review, see Schneider et al., 2007), as well as evidence suggesting a general slowing of cognitive processing (e.g., Salthouse, 1996).”

“Although the processing-speed and the inhibitory-deficit hypotheses have been regarded as competing with one another (Salthouse, 1996), more recent work has shown that slower processing and impaired inhibition may act concurrently (Gazzaley et al., 2008).”

“…et al., 2004, 2011; Yeung and Nieuwenhuis, 2009) and that general slowing accounted for a large part of the enlarged interference effect observed in adult aging (Salthouse, 1996), we speculated that the Stroop interference effect may be confounded by a general RT-slowing in the dual-task condition.”

“The processing speed measure was included here because a number of studies with older adults suggest that processing may be slowed in this group (Salthouse, 1996), and that this reduction in speed may lead to impairments in cognitive functioning. a. Processing speed.”

“Yet, because of cognitive slowing in older adults ( Salthouse, 1996 ), fast presentation rates may not allow older adults time to sufficiently encode perceptual features.”

“Thus, any age-related differences in the experiment reported reflected the efficiency of refreshing and not differences in processing speed (cf. Salthouse, 1996).”

“Previous studies have shown reductions in processing speed as part of normal aging (Salthouse, 1996) and, therefore, it is feasible that temporal processing speed for word identification in the peripheral visual field may reduce with age.”

“…be accompanied by age-related changes in the cognitive and linguistic processes related to speech comprehension, such as reductions in the ability to focus attention and inhibit irrelevant sources (Hasher & Zacks, 1988), as well as a general slowing of cognitive processing (e.g., Salthouse, 1996).”

“In addition, we expected the older participants to show longer RTs than the younger ones due to age-related slowing (Salthouse, 1996, 2000; Verhaeghen & Salthouse, 1997).”

“…Meinz, 1995); reduced working memory (e.g., Bopp & Verhaeghen, 2005; Carpenter, Miyake & Just, 1994; Hasher & Zacks, 1988; Salthouse & Meinz, 1995); reduced processing speed (e.g., Salthouse, 1992, 1996; Salthouse & Meinz, 1995); and reduced visual acuity (reviewed in Fozard & Gordon-Salant, 2001).”

“Age-related cognitive decline is defined as the development of typical performance decrements in various domains, including memory, processing speed, and attention (Salthouse, 1996; Glisky, 2007).”

“VS reflects general slowing, which is most often associated with typical (i.e., “healthy”) aging (27).”

“According to the processing speed theory, cortical processing speed are important for cognitive functions [33], and reaction time tests are valuable instruments to estimate cognitive Fig.”

“Speed of processing refers to the speed at which information is processed during mental operations (Salthouse, 1996).”

“Moderator analysis Previous research suggests that processing-speed ability varies as a function of age (Salthouse, 1996).”

“According to a theory of general slowing (e.g., Salthouse, 1996), the speed of cognitive operations should slow at least within a domain to a constant degree, regardless of the task faced.”

“Second, cognitive functioning is known to decline with age (Salthouse 1996; Verhaeghen and Salthouse 1997), and, in AD, a longer time since diagnosis often implies increased age.”

“Normal aging involves moderate reductions in information processing speed, memory, and regulatory functions [12, 27 , 28].”

“Explanations for these changes in memory performance usually cite a deficit in some process involved in memory formation/retrieval (e.g., forming associations; Naveh-Benjamin, 2000) or a deficit in a general cognitive factor (e.g., processing speed; Salthouse, 1996).”

“The cognitive decline in older adults represents an important issue in the study of aging. Age differences in visual attention seem to underlie at least in part age-related declines of cognitive functioning, but there still is no conclusive evidence apart from those deficits in visual attentional performance that are…”

“The processing speed theory of adult age differences (Salthouse, 1996) belongs to the latter class, and hence the finding of different slowing functions across different tasks does not represent a conflicting result for the processing speed theory. acceptance of the processing speed theory seems…”

“, speed of processing (Kemper, Jackson, Cheung, & Anagnopoulus, 1993; Salthouse, 1996), executive/attention functions (Daigneault & Braun, 1993; Phillips, 1999; Robbins et al., 1998; West, 1996), and linguistic functions such as sentence comprehension (Just & Carpenter, 1992; Maxim, 1982, 1999),…”

“The KINARM endpoint robot requires participants to grip and hold a frictionless manipulandum; this version of the TMT avoids any confound in TMT performance from reduced fine motor control or dexterity (Schear and Sato, 1989).”

“The processing-speed theory (67) suggests that a decline in speed results in processes failing to complete in time to be useful, and that slower processes reduce the amount of available processing capacity.”

“Speeded tasks generally show the earliest age-related performance declines, and speed of processing markedly affects performance across most domains [47].”

“29 Normal declines in processing speed and other cognitive domains that occur with aging may be accelerated in patients with cancer via multiple mechanisms.”

“Normal aging is also associated with deficits in many cognitive domains, with the largest age-related differences usually observed for perceptual speed [2,3].”

“Indeed, biological resources facilitate information processing (Salthouse 1996), working memory, (Hedden and Yoon 2006), and decision making (Shivapour et al.”

“For example, RT slowing is the most frequently reported age-related performance change (Salthouse, 1993, 1996), and many studies have revealed RT and BOLD magnitude relationships in older adults (Rypma et al., 2007; Davis et al., 2008; Gazes et al., 2012).”

“Aging is associated with decline in behavioral performance (Salthouse, 1996; Verhaeghen & Cerella, 2002) as well as altered neural activation (Eyler, Sherzai, Kaup, & Jeste, 2011; Rajah & D’Esposito, 2005), but how behavior relates to changes in neural activation in studies of aging is still unclear despite the vast n…”

“Prominent aging theories posit decrements in control processes as one of the key determinants of general cognitive decline (Baltes and Lindenberger, 1997; Hasher and Zacks, 1988; Salthouse, 1996).”

“Age-related changes in cognitive function affect processing speed (Salthouse 1996), attention (Krauss Whitbourne 2005), and working memory (Salthouse & Babcock 1991), all of which are likely to play an important role in the ability to comprehend written instructions and to perform management tasks…”

“age-related decline in memory [94,95], and with the importance of processing speed in PM functioning [96].”

“First, the results illustrate the effect of age in almost all tests, and more particularly in tests involving speed processing, such as TMT and DSST, illustrating the age-related speed processing decline considered as one of the cardinal markers of normal cognitive aging [18].”

“, motor speed and visual scanning speed (2, 3)].”

“The Speed of Processing theory of aging (Salthouse, 1996) posits that the speed at which cognitive functions are performed decreases in older age.”

“The nodal network analyses highlighted once again the important role of executive functions in late-middle-age individuals, and the role of processing speed in the elderly (Salthouse, 1996; West, 1996; Schaie, 2005; Robitaille et al., 2013).”

“Assume that there will be an age main effect as it is well established that older adults have mnemonic difficulties (Salthouse, 1996).”

“That cognitive abilities such as fluid intelligence or processing speed decrease along the life span is well-established, with some instances suggesting an inverted U-shaped relationship (Ackerman, 1996; Salthouse, 1996; Salthouse, Pink, & Tucker-Brob, 2008; Sturman, 2003; Verhaeghen & Salthouse, 1997).”

“It has been suggested that age-related cognitive decline may contribute to such deficits (Salthouse, 1996; Bo et al., 2009) and that these deficits can be mapped to an age-associated deterioration in corticostriatal networks (Rieckmann and Bäckman, 2009; Rieckmann et al., 2010).”

“…performance between individuals or across the life span has frequently been attributed to more fundamental constructs such as processing speed (Salthouse, 1996), executive control (Engle, 2002), linguistic knowledge or skills (MacDonald & Christiansen, 2002), or inhibitory processing (Hasher,…”

“The present results are consistent with the emerging view that while aging is accompanied by a general slowing of cognitive and motor processes (Cerella, 1985; Salthouse, 1996), age-related decline is not observed for all processing mechanisms.”

“, 2013), and supports a processing speed account of cognitive aging (Salthouse, 1996).”

“Unfortunately, the typical instantiation of this construct has not been clearly distinguished empirically from other conceptualizations of cognitive resources thought to underlie aging effects on performance, such as working memory or speed of processing (e.g., McCabe et al. 2010; Park and Payer 2006; Salthouse 1996).”

“With age, cognitive tasks become increasingly more difficult to perform (Salthouse, 1996; Der and Deary, 2006; Ren et al., 2013).”

“Some cognitive abilities are known to decline with advancing age that have potential import for understanding accented English, including speed of information processing (Salthouse, 1996), working memory capacity (Zacks et al., 2000), and attentional resources (McDowd and Shaw, 2000).”

“SS-OIT and SS-ODT Sniffin’ Sticks Odor Identification and Discrimination Identification Test (Hummel et al., 1997; Kobal et al., 1996); GPB Grooved Pegboard Test (Klove, 1963); PCT Salthouse Perceptual Comparison Test (Salthouse, 1996); DS Digit Span Forward and Backward (Wechsler, 2008); BTA Brief Test of Attention (…”

“Since RT is affected by general age-related slowing (e.g., Cerella, 1985; Salthouse, 1996), we found substantial age group differences in the average RT, that is, the time between two consecutive clicks [younger: 1.”

“…findings are consistent with previous research suggesting VPC tests have strong relationships with visual episodic memory (Bott et al. 2018) and processing speed, which is recognized to influence a variety of cognitive tasks, including those assessing executive function (Rose 1980; Salthouse 1996).”

“This relationship was reported in children (Fry & Hale, 2000), infants (Rose, Feldman & Jankowski, 2003), elderly (Salthouse, 1996), patients with Parkinson Disease (Grossman et al., 2002), patients with multiple sclerosis (Robinson et al., 1996), and patients with affective disorders (Nebes et…”

“The motivation for this analysis comes from Salthouse (1996).”

“For instance, the hypothesis of a decrease in processing speed with aging (Salthouse, 1996) was refined by showing that there are separable ways that such slowing can be produced.”

“Salthouse [24,25] suggested that reasoning and perceptual speed could represent the underlying factors related to all executive functions.”

“In fact, Salthouse (1994, 1996) has suggested that age-related deficits in WM and other cognitive tasks can be explained in terms of a general slowing of information processing.”

“These processing components have been reported to be more affected by the human aging process than the temporary storage components associated with parietal brain regions [18,23], where the integration of visuo-spatial and associative information takes place [24].”