MODELS OF AGING--THE MICROSTRUCTURE OF COGNITION

一段时间以来，调查人员一直认为，有一个一般的 随着年龄的增长，认知过程变慢。事实上，证据 似乎压倒性地支持这样的说法。然而近日 几位研究人员认为，不同领域的放缓程度各不相同。 其他研究人员认为，减缓因任务不同而异， 过程到下一个。因此，普遍放缓的模型已经慢慢地被 在其他不太通用的模型面前节节败退。不幸的是，所有的测试 迄今为止的各种减速模型在很大程度上忽略了内容， 认知过程网络的结构和能力， 支配着老年人和年轻人的表现。这是不幸的 因为正如一些调查人员最近所指出的， 要了解各种减速模型，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 开发并对模型进行必要的关键测试 一般的、特定领域的、特定任务的和特定过程的减速。 测试依赖于响应时间建模的最新发展， 既可以识别复杂认知网络的结构， 并估计嵌入在这种网络中的过程的持续时间。的 测试将基于实验室任务。实际上，目标是 确定实验室检查结果是否适用于现场， 特别是，实验室结果是否可以解释差异 年轻人和老年人的驾驶技能之间的差异。测试将基于 在完全仪表化或模拟的 车辆同样的衰老模型应该可以预测这些驾驶速度的减缓。 预测实验室任务中减缓的任务， 从实验室推广到现场。总之，拟议的 研究是试图利用已知的数学的 认知的微观结构，以探索与年龄相关的 在实验室和应用环境中的过程。这种方法可以 潜在地产生对衰老影响的轨迹的洞察， 目前的方法太粗糙而无法捕获。

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.