When does cognitive functioning peak? The asynchronous rise and fall of different cognitive abilities across the life span.

• Autores: Joshua K. Hartshorne, Laura T. Germine
• Localización: Psychological Science, ISSN-e 1467-9280, Vol. 26, Nº. 4 (April2015), 2015, págs. 433-443
• Idioma: inglés
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• Dialnet Métricas: 6 Citas
• Resumen

  • Understanding how and when cognitive change occurs over the life span is a prerequisite for understanding normal and abnormal development and aging. Most studies of cognitive change are constrained, however, in their ability to detect subtle, but theoretically informative life-span changes, as they rely on either comparing broad age groups or sparse sampling across the age range. Here, we present convergent evidence from 48,537 online participants and a comprehensive analysis of normative data from standardized IQ and memory tests. Our results reveal considerable heterogeneity in when cognitive abilities peak: Some abilities peak and begin to decline around high school graduation; some abilities plateau in early adulthood, beginning to decline in subjects’ 30s; and still others do not peak until subjects reach their 40s or later. These findings motivate a nuanced theory of maturation and age-related decline, in which multiple, dissociable factors differentially affect different domains of cognition.