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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Variability in reaction time performance of younger and older adults | | Author(s) | David F Hultsch, Stuart W S MacDonald, Roger A Dixon |
| Journal title | Journals of Gerontology: Series B, Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, vol 57B, no 2, March 2002 |
| Pages | pp P101-P115 |
| Keywords | Mental speed ; Age groups [elderly] ; Young adults [20-25] ; Comparison ; Canada. |
| Annotation | Age differences in three basic types of variability were examined: between people (diversity); within people, across tasks (dispersion); and within people across time (inconsistency). Measures of variability were based on latency performance from four measures of reaction time (RT) performed by a total of 90 younger (ages 17-36) and 763 older people (ages 54-94). Results indicated that all three types of variability were greater in older compared with younger participants, even when group differences in speed were statistically controlled. Measures of within-person variability (dispersion and inconsistency) were positively correlated. Individual differences in RT inconsistency correlated negatively with level of performance on measures of perceptual speed, working memory, episodic memory, and crystallised abilities. Partial set correlation analyses indicated that inconsistency predicted cognitive performance, independent of level of performance. Thus, variability of performance is an important indicator of cognitive functioning and ageing. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-020614201 A |
| Classmark | DG: BB: SD6: 48: 7S |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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