Cognitive aging

Over the years scientists have discovered a strong relationship between age and cognitive decline, and the effect on sensory ability. Cognitive aging is the changes in cognition and how it relates to age, or how age may affect cognitive function. Pascal et al (2006) referred cognitive aging as a “decline of processes that contribute to the efficiency of information processing.” In their research, they discovered that the decline process related to cognitive aging is related to the decline in “metabolic efficiency,” for instance it may cause ineffective signal transmission or communication.

Cognitive speed and cognitive control are particularly affected by age-related declines. The cognitive speed phenomenon affects the “level of processing” and slows it down significantly. In terms of cognitive tasks that are related to speed, Pascal et al (2006) found that “the reaction times of the elderly are between 1.4 to 2.0 times slower than the reaction times of the young.” There are two major problems with these slower reaction times: “limited-time mechanism” and “simultaneity mechanism.” Limited-time mechanism means that more time is required for initial cognitive process and less time left for afterward process, so it become challenging when there is a time restriction to the task. Simultaneity mechanism on the other hand implies that, different sub-processes in our working memory are not active simultaneously and therefore we cannot combine all the outcomes to process it as a whole. For instance, someone is reading a long sentence and the first word can be decayed by the time he/she arrives at the end of the sentence, which will make it difficult for him/her to understand the actual sentence.

Cognitive control is the other major affect of cognitive aging, and it is associated with multiple mechanisms such as task coordination, integration, selection, search, update, and switch. Among all these mechanisms coordination is particularly affected. The findings from the study of cognitive aging helps instructional designers understand the needs of elderly learners; later in this post I will discuss the ID needs for elderly learners.