Age Differences in Cognitive Performance in Later Life: Relationships to Self-Reported Health and Activity Life Style
Abstract
The predictive relationships among individual differences in self-reported physical health and activity life style and performance on an array of information processing and intellectual ability measures were examined. A sample of 484 men and women aged 55 to 86 years completed a battery of cognitive tasks measuring verbal processing time, working memory, vocabulary, verbal fluency, world knowledge, word recall, and text recall. Hierarchical regression was used to predict performance on these tasks from measures of self-reported physical health, alcohol and tobacco use, and level of participation in everyday activities. The results indicated: (a) individual differences in self-reported health and activity predicted performance on multiple cognitive measures; (b) self-reported health was more predictive of processing resource variables than knowledge-based abilities; (c) interaction effects indicated that participation in cognitively demanding activities was more highly related to performance on some measures for older adults than for middle-aged adults; and (d) age-related differences in performance on multiple measures were attenuated by partialing individual differences in self-reported health and activity.
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Most evidence linking an active lifestyle to cognitive enrichment comes from retrospective self-reports of how often activities were done.
“Most of the available evidence on cognitive enrichment through an active lifestyle rests on retrospective reports of activity frequency (e.g., Hultsch et al., 1993).”
From Enrichment Effects on Adult Cognitive Development: Can the Functional Capacity of Older Adults Be Preserved and Enhanced? (2008) · cites this paper as Hultsch et al., 1993
Jopp and Hertzog (2008) judged the Hultsch et al. (1993) questionnaire to have limited content coverage in social and physical activity domains and added items for those facets.
“Jopp and Hertzog (2008), for instance, considered the content coverage of the Hultsch et al. (1993) questionnaire in the social-activity and physical-activity domains to be limited, and added items targeting these facets”
From Enrichment Effects on Adult Cognitive Development: Can the Functional Capacity of Older Adults Be Preserved and Enhanced? (2008) · cites this paper as Hultsch et al., 1993
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- Authors
- Hultsch, D. F., Hammer, M., & Small, B. J.
- Affiliations
- University of Victoria (CA)
- ORCID
- Small, B. J.
- Venue
- Journal of Gerontology
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 1993-01-01
- Volume
- 48
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- P1-P11
- ISSN
- 0022-1422 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2086200072
- Cited by
- 274
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 15 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 9 · 2013: 5 · 2012: 7
- FWCI
- 13.26
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Gerontology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
- National Institutes of Natural Sciences
- National Institute on Aging (R01AG008235, R01-AGO8235)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology › Aging and Gerontology Research
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Dementia and Cognitive Impairment Research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Abilities and Testing
- Keywords
- cognitive aging, older adults, self-reported health, cognitive performance, individual differences, working memory, alcohol consumption, tobacco use, age differences, middle-aged adults, processing resources
- MeSH terms
- Activities of Daily Living, Acute Disease, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Aging, Alcohol Drinking, Chronic Disease, Cognition, Pharmaceutical Preparations, Female, Health, Humans, Language, Life Style, Male, Memory, Middle Aged, Reading, Mental Recall, Self Concept, Smoking, Time Factors, Vocabulary
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