Experimental Psychology, Cognition, and Human Aging

by Donald H. Kausler

Overview

This book is a major revision and extension of my earlier book, Experimental Psychology and Human Aging, which appeared in 1982. The intervening years have seen a remarkable expansion of psychological research on human aging, especially on topics dealing with cognition. They have also seen research on cognitive aging gain increasing importance within the mainstream of basic cognitive research. As my lecture notes for my course in the psychology of aging grew, so did my apprehension regarding the task ahead of me in revis­ ing the first edition. The research explosion in cognitive aging forced several major changes in content from the first to the second edition. Two chapters on learning and memory in the first edition were necessarily expanded to six chapters in the present edition. Similarly, the single prior chapter on percep­ tion and attention became two chapters, as did the single prior chapter on thinking. Another change from the first edition is in the addition of some review of the effects of abnormal aging on various cognitive processes, parti­ cularly in regard to memory functioning. To keep the revision within reason­ able length, some sacrifices had to be made. The multiple chapters on metho­ dology and theory in the first edition were condensed into the present, single chapter. However, the major topics from the first edition were retained and, in fact, added to by the inclusion of important topics and issues that emerged over the past eight years.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781461396970
Publisher:	Springer New York
Publication date:	02/09/2012
Edition description:	2nd ed. 1991. Softcover reprint of the original 2nd ed. 1991
Pages:	856
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.07(d)

Table of Contents

1 Methodological Issues, Explanation, and Theory in Experimental Aging Research.- Methodological Issues with Developmental-Research Designs: The Cross-Sectional Design.- Methodological Issues with Developmental-Research Designs: The Longitudinal Design.- Methodological Issues with Developmental-Research Designs: Sequential Designs.- Other Methodological Issues.- Identifying Age-Sensitive and Age-Insensitive Processes.- Alternatives to Traditional Interaction Research.- Theory and Its Interface with Experimental Aging Research.- Summary.- 2 Sensory Psychology and Perception.- Sensory Sensitivity and Psychophysical Research.- Sensitivity Versus Decision-Making Processes.- Adult Age Differences in Other Sensory Phenomena.- Adult Age Differences in Basic Perceptual Phenomena.- Adult Age Differences in Perception Attributable to Changes in Stimulus Persistence.- Adult Age Differences in Pattern Recognition.- Methodological Comment.- Summary.- 3 Attention.- Vigilance.- Selective Attention.- Divided Attention.- Summary.- 4 Learning: Conditioning, Instrumental, Motor Skill, Procedural.- Learning or Memory?.- Adult Age Differences in Conditioning.- Adult Age Differences in Instrumental Learning.- Adult Age Differences in Motor Skill Learning.- Adult Age Differences in Procedural Learning.- Abnormal Aging and Learning.- Summary.- 5 Learning: Verbal Learning, Mnemonics, Transfer.- Adult Age Differences in Verbal Learning: Paired-Associate Learning.- Analysis of Age-Sensitive Processes.- Adult Age Differences in Verbal Learning: Serial Learning.- Abnormal Aging and Verbal Learning.- Mnemonics.- Adult Age Differences in Transfer.- Comments.- Summary.- 6 Memory: Models of Episodic Memory and Related Research Issues.- Overview of the Human Memory System.- Adult Age Differences in Sensory Memory.- Adult Age Differences in Episodic Memory: Dual-Store Model.- Adult Age Differences in Episodic Memory: Levels-of-Processing Model.- Adult Age Differences in Episodic Memory: Resource Models.- Summary.- 7 Episodic Memory: Effortful Phenomena.- Adult Age Differences in Organizational Processes.- Adult Age Differences in the Generation Effect.- Adult Age Differences in Effortful Episodic Memory: Encoding Variability and the Lag Effect.- Adult Age Differences in Recognition Memory.- Adult Age Differences in Picture/Face Memory.- Adult Age Differences in Retrieval.- Adult Age Differences in Prospective Memory.- Adult Age Differences in Memory for Discourse.- Abnormal Aging and Effortful Episodic Memory.- Summary.- 8 Rehearsal-Independent Episodic Memory: Long-Term Forgetting.- Adult Age Differences in Memory for Noncontent Attributes of Episodic Events.- Adult Age Differences in Memory for Activities and Actions.- Adult Age Differences in Other Forms of Rehearsal- Independent Memory.- Abnormal Aging and Rehearsal-Independent Memory.- Adult Age Differences in Long-Term Forgetting.- Abnormal Aging and Long-Term Forgetting.- Summary.- 9 Generic Memory: Internal Lexicon, Implicit Memory, Metamemory.- Internal Lexicon.- Adult Age Differences in the Use of Syntax.- Abnormal Aging and the Internal Lexicon.- Implicit Memory.- Abnormal Aging and Implicit Memory.- Metamemory.- Summary.- 10 Thinking: Concept Formation and Identification.- Classical-Concept Formation and Identification.- New Directions in Research on Concept Acquisition.- Summary.- 11 Thinking: Problem Solving and Reasoning.- Problem Solving.- Verbal and Numerical Reasoning.- Spatial/Imaginal Reasoning.- Stage Theory of Cognitive Development and Age Changes in Thinking.- Summary.- 12 Intelligence.- General Issues in Research on Aging and Intelligence.- Psychometric Studies of Adult Age Differences in Intelligence: Global Assessments.- Psychometric Studies of Adult Age Differences in Intelligence: Special Abilities.- Relationship Between Special Abilities: The Differentiation/ De-differentiation Hypothesis.- Crystallized and Fluid Intelligence.- Abnormal Aging and Intelligence.- Terminal-Drop Phenomenon.- The Performance/Competence Issue.- Plasticity, Activity, and Intervention.- Intelligence in the Laboratory: Relationships Between Information Processing and Intelligence.- Summary.- References.- Author Index.