MODELS OF AGING--THE MICROSTRUCTURE OF COGNITION

一段时间以来，调查人员一直辩称，有一位将军 随着年龄的增长，认知过程变慢。事实上，证据显示 似乎压倒性地支持这样的说法。不过，最近， 一些调查人员辩称，放缓的程度在不同的领域有所不同。 其他研究人员认为，减速因任务或任务的不同而异 流程转到下一步。因此，普遍放缓的模式一直在慢慢地 输给了其他不太通用的型号。不幸的是，所有的测试 到目前为止，各种减速模型在很大程度上忽略了内容， 认知过程网络的配置和能力 管理老年人和年轻人的表现。这是令人遗憾的 因为正如一些调查人员最近辩称的那样，一个关键的测试 减速的各种模型需要对此有详细的了解 微观结构。从理论上讲，拟议研究的目标是 开发并承担必要的模型关键测试 一般的、特定于领域的、特定于任务的和特定于流程的减速。 这些测试依赖于响应时间建模的最新发展，这使得 既有可能识别复杂认知网络的结构 并估计这种网络中嵌入的过程的持续时间。这个 测试将基于实验室任务。实际上，我们的目标是 确定实验室的发现是否适用于现场，并在 尤其是，实验室的发现是否能解释差异 年轻人和老年人的驾驶技能之间的差异。测试的基础将是 关于在完全仪表化或模拟的情况下执行的驾驶任务 车辆。同样的衰老模型应该可以预测这些驾驶的减速 预测在实验室任务中速度变慢的任务，如果结果确实是这样 从实验室推广到田间。总括而言，建议的 研究是一种尝试，利用已知的关于数学的知识 认知微结构探讨增龄性减慢 实验室和应用环境中的流程。这种方法可以 潜在地提供了对衰老影响的根源的见解， 目前的方法太粗暴，无法捕捉到。

For some time now, investigators have argued that there is a general slowing of cognitive processes with advancing age. In fact, the evidence has seemed overwhelmingly to favor such an account. However, recently several investigators have argued that slowing varies across domains. Other investigators have argued that slowing varies from one task or process to the next. Thus, the model of general slowing has slowly been losing ground to the other less general models. Unfortunately, all tests to date of the various models of slowing have largely ignored the content, configuration and capacity of the network of cognitive processes which governs the performance of older and younger adults. This is unfortunate because as a number of investigators have recently argued, a critical test of the various models of slowing requires a detailed knowledge of this microstructure. Theoretically, the objective of the proposed research is to develop and then undertake the necessary critical tests of the models of general, domain-specific, task-specific and process-specific slowing. The tests rely on recent developments in response time modeling which make it possible both to identify the structure of complex cognitive networks and to estimate the durations of processes embedded in such networks. The tests will be based on laboratory tasks. Practically, the objective is to determine whether the laboratory findings generalize to the field, and in particular, whether the laboratory findings can explain differences between younger and older adults' driving skills. The tests will be based on driving tasks performed in either a fully instrumented or simulated vehicle. The same model of aging should predict slowing in these driving tasks that predicts slowing in the laboratory tasks if indeed the results from the laboratory generalize to the field. In summary, the proposed research is an attempt to use what is known about the mathematics of the microstructure of cognition to explore the age related slowing of processes in both a laboratory and applied setting. This approach can potentially yield insights into the locus of aging effects which other current methods are too gross to capture.