Acquisition and Application of Expertise at Computer Text Editing by Younger and Older Adults

Groups of younger and older adults learned to use a computer text editor. Measures of both knowledge and performance were collected at regular intervals. Better recall of material learned was correlated with better performance; there were no age group differences in recalled knowledge or in performance. Models of more skilled individuals showed richer knowledge representations and more sophisticated performance rules than models of less skilled individuals. Age accounted for very little of the variation in skilled performance

Performance Changes in Champion Swimmers Aged 30 to 84 Years

Performance changes in champion swimmers aged 30 to 84 years were examined using both longitudinal and repeated cross sectional designs. When single cross sectional slices of the data were analyzed, decrements in performance with advancing age were found, similar to those reported in older track athletes. When the same individuals or cohorts were followed over time, the changes were found to be substantially smaller. The results also showed greater age changes in short, anaerobically-swum races than in longer, aerobically-swum races

In Response to Stones and Kozma: Absolute and Relative Declines with Age in Champion Swimming Performances

Reanalysis of previously-presented data on changes in swimming speed supported an earlier claim that declines in speed with age were greater in shorter, anaerobically-swum races than in longer, aerobically-swum races. However, when average speeds of older cohorts were expressed as a proportion of the average speeds of younger cohorts for the same race, the opposite conclusion was supported. It is argued that neither of these findings can be accounted for by the hypothesis that age declines are greater in events in which the ratio of power required to power available is greater

Predicting Performance in the Basic Research Methods Course in Psychology

The purpose of the study was to develop a predictive equation for estimating performance in the basic course in methods of psychological research from scores on the Differential Aptitude Test reasoning scales and on the Davis Reading Test, from measures of attitudes toward issues in psychology, and from self-ratings of abilities and of expected course grade. Results showed a significant multiple correlation between performance and each of the several predictors, especially test and attitude scores. The regression equation was used to predict successfully grades earned in course sections not in the original sample

Age Differences and Changes in Sprint Swimming Performances of Masters Athletes

Sprint swimming speeds were compared in cohorts of masters swimmers ranging from 25-29 to 65-69 years of age in 1976. The cross-sectional comparisons were repeated for the same cohorts in 1981. The ten fastest performers in the United States in each cohort were obtained for women (n = 1407) and men (n = 1437) in 50-yd and 100-yd races for each of the four competitive strokes. Results showed the greatest decrement in performance with increasing age for the butterfly stroke. The slowing with age was unaffected by the length of the race. The results supported the hypothesis that age differences in performance are due primarily to differences in muscle strength. As in previous studies, changes in performance with age in the same cohort were substantially smaller than differences between cohorts

The Older Adult as Computer User

Computerization of the contemporary workplace has been rapid and extensive. It is likely that this change will have a major impact on the older worker. In the laboratory, older adults are less able than younger adults to master new material (Hartley, Harker, and Walsh, 1980). In field studies, they have been characterized as less likely to adopt innovations (Phillips and Sternthal, 1977). The exposure of older adults to computer use raises questions for both applied and basic research. Can older adults master common computer applications? Can techniques be found that will improve or speed mastery? Does familiarity with one application transfer to others of the same class? How does knowledge develop as the older adult learns? How is the knowledge base accessed to solve specific problems, to carry out specific tasks

Teaching the Arts of Psychological Research

In the standard laboratory course the student is taught to identify and label major components of the experiment such as dependent and independent variables, sample sizes, and experimental controls. The science of experimental research is emphasized. It is much more difficult to convey the arts of experimental research—those decisions that the student learns as rote catechism and that the professional researcher has acquired through slowly accreting clinical experience. These decisions are at the heart of psychological research as a problem solving process; they include the type of design, the naivete of the subjects, the sample size, etc

Successful aging: The role of cognitive gerontology

International audienceThis commentary explores the relationships between the construct of successful aging and the experimental psychology of human aging—cognitive gerontology. What can or should cognitive gerontology contribute to understanding, defining, and assessing successful aging? Standards for successful aging reflect value judgments that are culturally and historically situated. Fundamentally, they address social policy; they are prescriptive. If individuals or groups are deemed to be aging successfully, then their characteristics or situations can be emulated. If an individual or a group is deemed to be aging unsuccessfully, then intervention should be considered. Although science is never culture-free or ahistorical, cognitive gerontology is primarily descriptive of age-related change. It is not prescriptive. It is argue that cognitive gerontology has little to contribute to setting standards for successful aging. If, however, better cognitive function is taken as a marker of more successful aging—something not universally accepted—then cognitive gerontology can play an important assessment role. It has a great deal to contribute in determining whether an individual or a group evidences better cognitive function than another. More importantly, cognitive gerontology can provide tools to evaluate the effects of interventions. It can provide targeted measures of perception, attention, memory, executive function, and other facets of cognition that are more sensitive to change than most clinical measures. From a deep understanding of factors affecting cognitive function, cognitive gerontology can also suggest possible interventions. A brief narrative review of interventions that have and have not led to improved cognitive function in older adults. Finally, the enormous range is addressed in the estimates of the proportion of the population that meets a standard for aging successfully, from less than 10% to more than 90%. For research purposes, it would be better to replace absolute cutoffs with correlational approaches (e.g., Freund & Baltes, 1998, Psychology and Aging, 13, 531–543). For policy purposes, cutoffs are necessary, but we propose that assessments of successful aging be based not on absolute cutoffs but on population proportions. An example of one possible standard is this: Those more than 1 standard deviation above the mean are aging successfully; those more than 1 standard deviation below the mean are aging unsuccessfully; those in between are aging usually. Adoption of such a standard may reduce the wide discrepancies in the incidence of successful aging reported in the literature