Nature and Impact of Development in Processing Speed

描述（由申请人提供）：儿童、青少年和成年人执行心理过程的速度存在普遍和巨大的年龄差异。此外，处理速度的年龄差异往往会通过工作记忆直接或间接地影响其他认知过程。了解这些年龄差异的性质和后果是拟议工作的总目标。这一目标有三个具体目标： 1.大多数关于处理速度变化的证据来自横截面研究;对个体处理速度的增长知之甚少。一项拟议的纵向研究将提供有关儿童和青少年时期个体加工速度增长性质的证据。 2.关于与年龄相关的加工速度变化的后果的证据，主要是基于加工速度和其他认知过程之间的相关性的横截面分析。拟议的纵向研究的目的是提供更有力的证据，加工速度的发展变化的认知后果。 3.认知发展反映了两个全球性的过程（例如，处理速度、工作记忆）以及特定于特定知识领域的处理。然而，很少有研究，解决全球和特定领域的进程在一个单一的任务或域的贡献。提出了四项研究，旨在揭示与年龄相关的处理速度变化的间接和直接影响如何与特定领域的过程相互作用，以产生认知变化。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Age differences in the speed with which children, adolescents, and adults execute mental processes are ubiquitous and large. Furthermore, age differences in processing speed often affect other cognitive processes directly and indirectly, via working memory. Understanding the nature and consequences of these age differences is the general goal of the proposed work. Three specific aims follow from this goal: 1. Most of the evidence concerning change in processing speed comes from cross-sectional studies; relatively little is known about growth of processing speed in individuals. A proposed longitudinal study will provide evidence concerning the nature of growth of processing speed in individuals during childhood and adolescence. 2. Evidence regarding the consequences of age-related change in processing speed it is based largely on cross-sectional analyses of correlations between processing speed and other cognitive processes. The proposed longitudinal study is designed to provide stronger evidence for the cognitive consequences of developmental change in processing speed. 3. Cognitive development reflects both processes that are global (e.g., processing speed, working memory) as well as processes specific to particular domains of knowledge. Nevertheless, there is little research that addresses the contributions of both global and domain-specific processes within a single task or domain. Four studies are proposed that would reveal how the indirect and direct effects of age-related change in processing speed interact with domain-specific processes to yield cognitive change.