Fearful (a)symmetries – page 1

PreprintThis chapter may not exactly replicate the final version published in the book. It is not thecopy of record.© Oxford University Press

Framing fearful (a)symmetries: Three hard questions about cognitive agingPaul VerhaeghenSyracuse University

In press, in R. A. Dixon, L. Bäckman and L-G Nilsson (Eds.),

New Frontiers in Cognitive Aging

. New York: Oxford University Press.Author note

This research was supported in part by a grant from the National Institute on Aging (AG-16201).

Fearful (a)symmetries – page 2Two opposite forces drive researchers’ thinking (and hence their research practice) concerningcognitive aging. The first driving force is towards strong reduction. The monograph thatexemplifies this approach best is probably Salthouse’s 1991 Theoretical perspectives oncognitive aging. The preferred method is a correlational, individual-differences approach, inwhich a set of antecedent variables is used to predict age differences (in a cross-sectionaldesign) or age changes (in a longitudinal design) in some aspect of cognition – often measured by a small set of tasks assumed to tap into relatively broad psychometric concepts. The currentdream among reductionists is of cross-level unification (see, e.g., the strong claims in Li,Lindenberger, & Frensch, 2000, and Park, Polk, Mikels, Taylor, & Marshuetz, 2001); theaspiration is to build up explanations for cognitive aging from the bottom up, referring tochanges in brain structure, in neuronal functioning, or both. This dream is inherent in the quintetof excellent papers offered in this section: they either explicitly investigate biologicalmechanisms (Herlitz & Yonker; Pedersen; Wahlin), or suggest that a foray into biology would bea desirable next step (Christensen & Mackinnon; Lindenberger & Ghisletta).A second school of cognitive aging, perhaps best represented by Kausler’s 1991monograph Experimental psychology, cognition, and human aging, aims at high precision, andexamines aging at the process level. The current frontline approach in the process-oriented campis computational, that is, aging is modeled mathematically by borrowing existing models fromcognitive psychology and searching for age-relatedness in specific parameters of those models(see, e.g., the strong positions taken by Byrne, 1998; Kahana, Howard, Zaromb, & Wingfield,2002; Meyer, Glass, Mueller, Seymour, & Kieras, 2001; and Ratcliff, Spieler, & McKoon, 2000);the aspiration is to reproduce the pattern of age-effects observed in a particular set of tasks bymodifying as few of the general-cognitive model parameters as possible. The preferred methodfor obtaining human data is the experimental method, in which performance (latency or accuracy) is compared between a baseline version of a task and a version in which the process of interest is manipulated.In many ways, the two approaches are diametrical opposites: the first operates at amacro-level (three of the papers in this section use broad concepts such as ‘cognition’, ‘cognitivefunctioning’, or ‘cognitive aging’ in their titles, suggesting that the results generalize across allaspects of cognitive performance; one title does not even mention cognition, but merely ‘oldage’), the second is decidedly micro (with only occasional broad claims, e.g., Meyer et al.,2001). The ambitions differ: the former approach goes broad, the latter deep. The former seemsto suggest that cognitive aging is orderly and simple; the latter that it is diverse and quite messy.Shall, or even can the twain meet? Meso-approaches exist in which cognitive aging isconsidered in considerably more detail that is typically done in the macro-approach, but still atmuch coarser resolutions than obtained in the micro-approach (e.g., Kliegl, 1996; Hale &Myerson, 1996; Verhaeghen et al., in press), but this meso-approach may be a theoreticalalternative rather than a bridge. Still, questions emerge from the meso-approach that are relevantas background questions to the wider epistemology as exemplified by the papers in this section.It does not exactly answer those questions, but in a book that wants to push new frontiers, itmight well be worth to keep some unanswerables at the horizon of our vision…The first question concerns the integration of research findings across approaches. It ismy feeling that cognitive aging is best described by the terrifying beauty – terrifying at least tothe researcher trying to understand them – of two almost paradoxically opposed phenomena:first, the existence of strong and reliable across-phenomenon regularities between the cognitive behavior of younger and older adults, and, second, the existence of equally strong and reliable

Fearful (a)symmetries – page 3dissociations along presumed (but currently ill-understood) fault lines in the cognitive system.This terrifying beauty, these fearful symmetries and asymmetries between the cognitive systemas implemented in a young adult and an older adult body, seem to speak against any dream of quick and easy unification through single-parameter models.The second question deals with the nature of aging itself. What exactly is it that cognitiveaging researchers try to explain? Are our methods, our models, and our favorite explanatoryvariables aimed at the aging process itself, or at age differences? More specifically, the field hasa pretty good grip on the major variables that explain age-related variance in a cross-sectionalcontext (i.e., we understand age differences pretty well), but these same methods, models, andvariables fall drastically short when predicting or describing global age-related change or individual differences in change.The third question is related to the second question. It inquires as to what makes the studyof aging special, that is, what makes our explanation for aging distinct from other explanationsinvoking the same variables to explain other aspects of group or individual differences?The first hard question: What is the complexity dimension of cognitive aging?Aging is not programmed. Humans posses a genetic blueprint for development, but mostlikely we are not equipped with a blueprint for aging. Therefore, the effects of aging might beexpected to be any (and maybe even any combination) of the following: (a) the system breaksdown in a global fashion in all individuals (but not necessarily at identical rates); (b) the system breaks down randomly (i.e., some components become defective earlier than others, but whichcomponents break down is a matter of chance), leading to global changes when perceived at thegroup level; or (c) the system breaks down along predictable lines. Scenario A will occur if allelements of the system are equally vulnerable; scenario B will occur if some randomness isinvolved in system component vulnerability, or if the integrity of the components iscompromised differently due to life history and/or life circumstances (e.g., vascular damage dueto tobacco use); scenario C will occur if particular system components are particularly vulnerableor invulnerable. Different methods will pick up different aspects of the reality of cognitive aging.Unfortunately, the correlational approach is not helpful in distinguishing the alternatives. If change is correlated, that is, if the rank ordering of individuals remains largely identical over time, then by necessity a common factor will emerge; this is true under either scenario A or scenario C. It has been demonstrated analytically that even scenario B can lead to the emergenceof a common factor. Experimental research, however, can help in detecting predictabledissociations (scenario C).One of the accomplishments of the meso-approach is that it points both at similarities between performance of young and older adults and at crucial differences. In this paragraph, Iwill briefly review five sample cases, and conclude that single-parameter models by necessityfall short in explaining such (a)symmetries. The first four sample cases show that regularities can be detected between different systems or different subject groups when examined at a deeper level, that is, when the data are parameterized according to underlying performance modelsrather than merely being examined at the level of age-by-condition or age-by-subject-groupinteractions. The fifth sample case makes the opposite point, namely that there exist breaking points in the system that are specifically associated with age, and that cannot be reduced to anysingle-parameter explanation. In other words, the message is that there are between-task-domainasymmetries with regard to aging effects, but that within the boundaries of those domains,remarkable regularities surface.