Faculty Presentation: “Heterogeneity in Cognitive Aging”
Speaker Ulman Lindenberger (Berlin)
Date 24 November 2011, 18:30
Location
Berlin School of Mind and Brain
Festsaal, 2nd floor
Luisenstraße 56
10117 Berlin
The heterogeneity of behavioral change in adulthood poses conceptual and methodological challenges but also permits insights into the mechanisms and modifiability of cognitive development. I will elaborate these claims in four steps.
First, I will propose that common genetic polymorphisms contribute to individual differences in behavioral change.
Second, I will note that functional brain imaging studies have tended to neglect individual differences in old age.
When differences are considered, similarities in brain activation patterns between younger and high-performing older adults come to the fore, suggesting that preservation may represent a more viable model of successful cognitive aging than compensation. Third, I will report new findings on the experimental modifiability of cognitive abilities, und link them to theoretical considerations on adult cognitive plasticity. I will end with a plea for multivariate within-person research designs that link short-term variability to long-term change to capture the causal dynamics of behavioral change.