Online Archive of University of Virginia Scholarship
Evaluating Cognitive Dedifferentiation1316 views
Author
La Fleur, Claire, Psychology - Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Virginia
Advisors
La Fleur, Claire, Arts & Sciences Graduate-lasg, University of Virginia
Abstract
The age dedifferentiation hypothesis for cognition predicts that different cognitive abilities are more closely interrelated in older than in younger adults. However, extensive research on this topic has failed to produce a consensus on the size of this effect and even whether it occurs, possibly due to the large number of methodological and theoretical differences between studies. The present data sets used norming data from six cognitive batteries and several sets of longitudinal data to evaluate whether dedifferentiation occurs in representative, healthy aging samples ranging in mean age from 16-99. In addition, we evaluated whether factors like test battery, the type of cognitive ability being measured, or the type of age trajectory tested impacts whether age dedifferentiation was found.
Degree
PHD (Doctor of Philosophy)
Language
English
Rights
All rights reserved (no additional license for public reuse)
La Fleur, Claire. Evaluating Cognitive Dedifferentiation. University of Virginia, Psychology - Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, PHD (Doctor of Philosophy), 2017-06-07, https://doi.org/10.18130/V35365.