Cited by 5,902Aging and Gerontology ResearchCognitive Abilities and TestingCognitive Functions and Memory

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The processing-speed theory of adult age differences in cognition

Salthouse, Timothy A.·1996·Psychological Review

DOI 10.1037/0033-295x.103.3.403

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Abstract

Advancing adult age is associated with reduced processing speed, which constrains cognitive performance.

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Crossref · 10.1037/0033-295x.103.3.403

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“One argument is that aging is related to slowed processing of information, which places strain on the capacity of working memory to manipulate and work with information (Salthouse, 1996).”
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“In the aging literature, there has been debate over whether the slow RTs reported in aging research represent a generalized speed deficit or whether some aspects of processing are affected more than others (Salthouse, 1996, for a review).”
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Shih, S.-I., Meadmore, K. L., & Liversedge, S. P. (2012) · Memory · doi:10.1080/09658211.2012.692796 · Cited by 4
“Due to general slowing in normal ageing (e.g., Birren, 1974; Salthouse, 1996), it is unsurprising to observe that older adults make longer fixations and require more processing time.”
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“Salthouse (1996) explains the occurrence of problems by means of the Pro-cessing-Speed Theory.”
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“This can lead to older people being more likely to experience difficulties compared to a younger cohort, when faced with complex tasks [35] such as learning and using ICTs.”
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“To ensure that there would be no confound, accuracy for each individual was regressed onto their error awareness in order to measure unique individual variability in error awareness beyond age-related task performance [19, 20].”
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“이는 노년층이 의미역을 예측하고 시선 고정한 시간이 청년층에 비해 더 적은 것을 의미한 다. 이 결과는 동사의 예측 정도에 따른 노년층의 의미역 예측 반응 속도와 시선고정비율 감소가 Salthouse (1996)가 연구를 통해 주장 한 노화에 따른 언어처리 속도의 감소와 밀접하게 관련됨을 시사 한다.”
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“…such as processing actual feedback information during sequence execution and information to use in advance to prepare/execute the next element or grouped elements of the sequence (de Kleine & van der Lubbe, 2011; Salthouse, 1996; Verwey, 2010) seem crucial for movement sequence learning.”
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“The addition of the Processing Speed and Working Memory indices is welcome given data showing the importance of similar measures in a variety of groups including normal aging (Salthouse, 1996), traumatic brain injury (Gronwall & Wrightson, 1974), and multiple sclerosis (Demaree et al., 1999).”
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Method
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Introduction
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“, age and education) in accounting for age-related cognitive deficits (Salthouse, 1996).”
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“Processing speed decrease with older age (e.g., Salthouse, 1996), and mental rotation performance is positively associated with intelligence (e.g., Varriale et al., 2018).”
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“Given the link between processing speed and generalized cognitive decline (Salthouse, 1996), future interventions would bene ﬁ t from more timed drawing exercises.”
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“(Salthouse, 1996) proposed that cognitive aging is associated with impairment in processing speed, which in turn may lead to a cascade of age-associated deficits in other cognitive abilities.”
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“While SOP is considered a limited cognitive resource for learning and memory (40), some researchers have demonstrated that it can account for the individual differences in Vrbl of older adults to some extent (41).”
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“A well-known result from the literature on cognitive aging is longer RTs in older compared with younger adults, often attributed to a general slowdown of cognitive processing (e.g., Salthouse, 1996; Verhaeghen & Salthouse,1997).”
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“Response time allowances accommodate age-related processing speed changes [64].”
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Background
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“After the study phase, participants completed a pattern-comparison task (Salthouse, 1996) for three minutes.”
Method
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“…as the behavioral measure because: (i) reaction times vary between age groups due to changes in general processing speed that are not specific to semantic cognition (Salthouse 1996), and (ii) we aimed to keep our behavioral measures consistent with the behavioral measures used in the Cam-CAN data.”
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“While memory loss is one of the earliest cognitive alterations in aging, a decline in processing speed is pointed out as a leading indicator and critical mechanism behind age-related cognitive alterations [5, 21].”
Background
The Attentional Boost Effect in Older Adults: Examining the Vulnerable Boost Hypothesis
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“According to the processing-speed hypothesis (Salthouse, 1996), older adults experience a general slowdown of the speed of cognitive processes and, as a result, they are less able to perform late-stage encoding elaborations, due to the increased time necessary to perform early elaborations.”
Influential
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“The Speed of Processing Theory, proposed by Salthouse (1991, 1996), posits that cognitive decline stems from slower processing speeds, making tasks requiring quick mental processing difficult.”
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“; Wechsler, 2008) was used because it is considered the best WM assessment (Crowe, 2000; Salthouse, 1996; Shelton, Elliott, Hill, Calamia, & Gouvier, 2009).”
Method
What does “Internet” mean to us as we age? A multi-task investigation on the conceptualization of the technological domain across generations
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“Notably, cognitive decline was most evident and stable in information processing speed, which is believed to be a primary factor and the most sensitive measure of cognitive ageing [30].”
Crystallized and fluid cognitive abilities have different genetic associations with neuropsychiatric disorders
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“Exact Z statistiscs and FDR-adjusted P values are reported in Supplementary Data 19 and 20.”
Influential
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“…research gaps, we proposed the following hypotheses: (1) resilience would be a protective factor in the cognitive function of ageing individuals [59, 82], specifically by affecting the performance of processing speed in older adults, and (2) the effect of resilience on processing speed may be…”
Influential
Age-related differences in the relationship between sustained attention and associative memory and Memory-Guided inference
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“Furthermore, we report that in older adults, response slowing correlates with better performance, consistent with an age-related speed-accuracy tradeoff (Salthouse, 1996).”
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“…models to explain the mechanisms that sustain episodic memory functioning and its decline with age (e.g., deficit in working memory, Hasher & Zacks, 1988; Associative Deficit Hypothesis, Naveh-Benjamin, 2000; deficit of processing speed, Salthouse, 1996; deficit of executive functions, West, 1996).”
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“The well-documented slowing of processing speed that accompanies aging may contribute to this decline (Finkel et al. 2007; Newson & Kemps 2005; Reuter-Lorenz & Park 2010; Saimpont et al. 2015; Salthouse 1996).”
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“…changes – such as demyelination, cortical thinning or other structural deterioration – lead to decrements in this general factor, which then compromises higher-order cognitive abilities like executive function function (Salthouse, 1996) or general memory and spatial ability (Finkel et al., 2007).”
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Haran, J. P., Barrett, A. M., Lai, Y., Odjidja, S. N., Dutta, P., McGrath, P. M., Samari, I., Romeiro, L., Lopes, A., Bucci, V., et al. (2025) · Journal of Alzheimer s Disease Reports · doi:10.1177/25424823251363549 · Cited by 7
“69 However, executive functions and processing speed can differentially in ﬂ uence memory decline.”
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“For example, the processing-speed hypothesis (Salthouse, 1996, 2019) assumes that the speed of processing is a main constraint associated with older age.”
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Processing Speed and Attentional Resources
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“…of neuroimaging studies on healthy cognitive aging (Dennis & Cabiza, 2008), there are five major cognitive aging theories: the speed deficit theory (Salthouse, 1996), the resources deficit theory (Craik, 1986), the recollection deficit theory (Johnson, Hashutroudi, & Lindsay, 1993; Naveh-Benjamin,…”
Background
Age-Related Changes in Category Decision-Making Abilities as a Function of Typicality and Animacy of Noun Exemplars
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“따라서 Salthouse (1996)가 주장한 바와 같이, 제한된 시간 기제를 가진 노년층은 비전형적인 본보기에서 인지적 부담이 증가 되어 반응시간이 증가하는 것이다.”
Influential
Age Differences in Contingency Judgement Linked to Perceptual Segregation
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“Many researchers have argued that reductions in speed of processing influence age-related differences (eg, Anderson & Craik, 2000 ; Birren, Cunningham, & Yamamoto, 1983 ; Salthouse, 1996 ; see Hartley, 2006 , for a recent review), and the efficiency with which information can be extracted from a visual display is know…”
Background
Verbal play as a discourse resource in the social interactions of older and younger communication pairs
Shune, S., & Duff, M. C. (2014) · Journal of Interactional Research in Communication Disorders · doi:10.1558/jircd.v5i2.193 · Cited by 3
“In addition to declines in memory, processing speed, attention, and executive functioning (e.g., Mahncke et al., 2006; Park et al., 1996; Park and Gutchess, 2005; Reuter-Lorenz and Sylvester, 2005; Salthouse, 1996), aging can also negatively aAect language and, potentially, the ability and desire for interpersonal com…”
Background
Modelling the effects of formal literacy training on language mediated visual attention
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“…develop a framework of declarative, social skills, and domain-specific knowledge, in addition to general cognitive abilities, that they can draw upon in order to maintain competence in relevant areas (Salthouse, 1991, 1996; Finucane, Mertz, Slovic, and Schmidt, 2005; Yates and Palatano, 1999).”
Background
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“Given the fact that working memory capacity is one of the cognitive functions that shows a steadfast decline with aging (Salthouse, 1996), it is not surprising that text recall suffers from negative consequences of aging.”
Background
Human Factors and Voting Technology
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“They have decreased levels of visual acuity, may be less familiar with electronic technologies, and will likely require more time to complete a task (e.g. Salthouse, 1996; Rogers, Fisk & Walker, 1996).”
Background
Relation of short-term working memory and speech perception: a cross-sectional study
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“This is somewhat surprising given the fact that one of the explanations of cognitive aging is the decrease in processing speed (Salthouse, 1996) and since involvement in everyday tasks has been proven in several studies (Burton et al., 2006; Diehl et al., 2005; Miloyan, Razani, Larco, Avila, &…”
Result
Effects of aripiprazole and haloperidol on neural activation during a simple motor task in healthy individuals: A functional MRI study
Goozée, R., O’Daly, O., Handley, R., Marques, T. R., Taylor, H., McQueen, G., Hubbard, K., Pariante, C. M., Mondelli, V., Reinders, A. A. T. S., et al. (2016) · Human Brain Mapping · doi:10.1002/hbm.23485 · Cited by 2
“Motor function deficits are widely reported in schizophrenia and may underlie a number of other cognitive deficits associated with the disorder [Salthouse, 1996].”
The role of regional heterogeneity in age-related differences in functional hemispheric asymmetry: an fMRI study
Heng, G. J., Wu, C., Archer, J. A., Miyakoshi, M., Nakai, T., & Chen, S. A. (2017) · Aging Neuropsychology and Cognition · doi:10.1080/13825585.2017.1385721 · Cited by 2
“This finding of slower processing speed converges with theories on age-related differences in speed of information processing (Salthouse, 1996; Verhaeghen & Cerella, 2008), which may reflect an underlying decline in task-specific neural network efficiency.”

Authors: Salthouse, T. A.
Affiliations: Georgia Institute of Technology (US)
Corresponding author: Salthouse, Timothy A.
Venue: Psychological Review
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Published: 1996
Volume: 103
Issue: 3
Pages: 403-428
ISSN: 0033-295X (ISSN-L)
1939-1471
DOI: 10.1037/0033-295x.103.3.403
OpenAlex: W2039752037
Semantic Scholar: 8ed819fe682efc79801d73e6343885be23d36fb8
Cited by: 5,902
References: 113
Citations by year: 2026: 269 · 2025: 251 · 2024: 232 · 2023: 214 · 2022: 217 · 2021: 273 · 2020: 240 · 2019: 296 · 2018: 280 · 2017: 273 · 2016: 284 · 2015: 309 · 2014: 267 · 2013: 266 · 2012: 283
FWCI: 81.40
Type: journal article
Language: en
Open access: closed
Locations: Psychological Review (publishedVersion)
PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders: National Institute on Aging (R37AG006826)
Topics: Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Aging and Gerontology Research
Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Abilities and Testing
Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Functions and Memory
Keywords: processing speed, age differences in cognition, fluid intelligence, cognitive aging
MeSH terms: Adolescent, Adult, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Aging, Attention, Cognition, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Reaction Time

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The processing-speed theory of adult age differences in cognition

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