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Examination of the processing speed account in a population‐based longitudinal study with narrow age cohort design
Author(s) -
STERNÄNG OLA,
WAHLIN ÅKE,
NILSSON LARSGÖRAN
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.743
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1467-9450
pISSN - 0036-5564
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9450.2008.00663.x
Subject(s) - psychology , population , cohort , longitudinal study , demography , statistics , mathematics , sociology
The processing speed account suggests that general slowing of mental processing speed results in an overall decline, especially age‐related decline, in other cognitive domains. Support for the speed account comes mainly from cross‐sectional studies with participants that vary in age (age‐heterogeneous samples). This study investigated how well variations in processing speed predict change of episodic recall in a longitudinal framework and examined with the Narrow Age Cohort (NAC) design. Data were obtained from Betula, a population‐based longitudinal study. Both 5‐year ( n = 490; Time 3 – Time 4) and 10‐year follow‐up results ( n = 608; Time 1 – Time 3) were used. In both samples, which were subjected to prospective dementia screening, we found considerably weaker associations in longitudinal data compared to cross‐sectional, and also weaker associations in age‐homogeneous than in age‐heterogeneous samples. The results provide little support for the speed account.