Modelling age-related changes in information processing
- 1 March 2001
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Taylor & Francis Ltd in The European Journal of Cognitive Psychology
- Vol. 13 (1-2), 217-234
- https://doi.org/10.1080/09541440125907
Abstract
Researchers in cognitive ageing seldom take advantage of explicit quantitative models of information processing to account for age differences in cognition. Where quantitative models have been used, these models typically remain silent about the details of information processing. The lack of explicit cognitive models has consequences for the interpretation of a number of empirical results. Using a specific class of models called random walk models, I review evidence showing that the empirical relations taken as support for global age-related changes are consistent with a number of possible age effects on information processing. In addition, I demonstrate that these models can be used to account for age differences within the context of individual experiments and such modelling has important implications for the interpretation of age differences in performance.Keywords
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