Cognitive Addition: Strategy Choice and Speed-of-Processing Differences in Young and Elderly Adults

Sixty young and 60 elderly adults completed a pencil-and-paper addition test and solved 40 computer-presented simple addition problems. Strategies and problem solution times were recorded on a trial-by-trial basis and were classified in accordance with the distributions of associations model of stra...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychology and aging 1991-09, Vol.6 (3), p.474-483
Main Authors: Geary, David C, Wiley, Judith G
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Adult. Elderly
Age Differences
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Aging - psychology
Attention
Biological and medical sciences
Cognitive Development
Cognitive Processes
Developmental psychology
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Human
Humans
Male
Mathematics
Mental Recall
Middle Aged
Problem Solving
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Reaction Time
Verbal Behavior
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Summary:Sixty young and 60 elderly adults completed a pencil-and-paper addition test and solved 40 computer-presented simple addition problems. Strategies and problem solution times were recorded on a trial-by-trial basis and were classified in accordance with the distributions of associations model of strategy choices. The elderly group showed a performance advantage on the ability measure and for the developmental maturity of the mix of problem-solving strategies, but the young group showed an advantage for overall solution times. A componential analysis of the overall solution times for memory retrieval trials, however, showed no reliable age difference for rate of retrieving addition facts from long-term memory but did suggest that the elderly adults might have been slower than the younger adults for rate of encoding digits and verbally producing an answer. Overall results are interpreted within the context of the strategy choice model.
ISSN:0882-7974
1939-1498
DOI:10.1037/0882-7974.6.3.474