2. 4. Selective Gains and Losses
1. Introduction
2. Fact or Fiction?
3. What is Intelligence?
4. Selective Gains and Losses
5. Closing Thoughts 2

3. Introduction Video: Topic 21
This presentation describes cognitive development in adults between ages 25 and 65, as measured by various tests (psychometrics). It also explores ways in which aspects of middle-aged adult experience reflect selective cognitive gains and losses.
Video:
Topic 21 3 3

4. Fact or Fiction? Fiction Fact
1. Both cross-sectional and longitudinal research indicate that intelligence declines systematically during adulthood.
2. Individual differences in intelligence are “fixed” in that they remain roughly the same over the life span.
3. Most developmentalists today conceive of intelligence as a single underlying ability.
Instruction: Click to reveal each question, then the category.
Please note, this page is available to use with a clicker system.
4. Experienced workers often surpass younger workers because of their ability to specialize and harness their efforts, compensating for any deficits that might appear. 4 4

5. Research on Age and Intelligence
Seattle Longitudinal Study: The first cross-sequential study of adult intelligence (began in1956; most recent testing in 2005).
How have some adults fared on tests developed for the Seattle Longitudinal Study?
Scores
(a) Two women
Scores
(b) Two men 75 70
153013 65
154503 60
homemaker
purchasing agent 55 50
153003 45
155510
clerical worker 40 35
teacher who retired
Instruction:
Click to reveal test scores and then click again to read K. Werner Schaie’s, description of that person.
The description of each subject comes from K. Warner Schaie, who developed the Seattle Longitudinal Study (Schaie, 1989, pp ).
These graphs index changes in word-recognition scores for pairs of comparable adults over time. Notice how distinctly different each profile is, although all four are from the same nation and cohort. These differences underscore the power of occupation, marriage, health, and other experiences that vary from one person to another.
“Subject had been professionally active as a teacher. Her performance remained fairly level and above the population average until her early sixties. Since that time she has been divorced and retired from her teaching job; her performance in I984 dropped to an extremely low level, which may reflect her experiential losses but could also be a function of increasing health problems.”
“Subject is a high school graduate who has been a homemaker all of her adult life and whose husband is still alive and well-functioning. She started our testing program at a rather low level, but her performance has had a clear upward trend.”
“Subject , a high school graduate who held mostly clerical types of jobs, showed gain until the early sixties and stability over the next assessment interval. By age 76, however, he showed substantial decrement that continued through the last assessment, which occurred less than a year prior to his death.”
”Subject , who started out somewhat below the population average, completed only grade school and worked as a purchasing agent prior to his retirement. He showed virtually stable performance until his late sixties; his performance actually increased after he retired, but he is beginning to experience health problems and has recently become a widower, and his latest assessment was below the earlier stable level.”
Although various aspects of development generally follow a pattern of decline starting at mid-40s for men and age 60 for women, the actual pattern for any individual may be completely different from this average trend, based on that individual’s relational, educational, occupational, and health history. 25 30
Age 43 50 57 64 71
Age 55 62 69 76 83
cross-sectional research: A research design that compares groups of people who differ in age but are similar in other important characteristics.
cross-sequential research: A hybrid research design in which researchers first study several groups of people of different ages (a cross-sectional approach) and then follow those groups over the years (a longitudinal approach).
longitudinal research: A research design in which the same individuals are followed over time and their development is repeatedly assessed.
Source: Schaie, 1989

6. Crystallized Intelligence
Two Clusters of Intelligence
Many and Varied
Fluid Intelligence
Crystallized Intelligence
The types of basic intelligence that make learning quick and thorough. Includes abilities such as short-term memory, abstract thought, and speed of thinking.
Test your intelligence
Test your intelligence
The types of intellectual ability that reflect accumulated learning. Vocabulary and general information are examples.
What comes next in each of these two series?
What is the meaning of the word misanthrope?
Instruction:
Click to see the definitions, and then click again to reveal related test questions.
The correct answers are 6 and F. These are fairly easy for people who know the alphabet and the times tables, but some series are more difficult to complete.
A misanthrope is a “hater of humankind.” The area of a circle is its radius squared and then multiplied by Pi (3.14). In 1950, Sri Lanka was called Ceylon.
Fluid intelligence is age-sensitive. Although brain slowdown begins at age 20 or so, it is rarely apparent until massive declines in fluid intelligence begin to affect crystallized intelligence and overall IQ scores start to fall in late adulthood. Therefore, some developmental psychologists think crystallized intelligence increases with age, while fluid intelligence declines.
V X Z B D
What is the formula for the area of a circle?
What was Sri Lanka called in 1950? 6 6 6 6

7. Age and Culture
What are some of the different types of intelligence that may be important for success in different cultures?
creative intelligence: A form of intelligence that involves the capacity to be intellectually flexible and innovative.
analytical intelligence: A form of intelligence that involves such mental processes as abstract planning, strategy selection, focused attention, and information processing, as well as verbal and logical skills.
practical intelligence: The intellectual skills used in everyday problem solving.
Instruction:
Click each to reveal three kinds of intelligence at work.
How do different kinds of intelligences operate in different cultures?
These three kinds of intelligence were first mentioned by Robert Sternberg.
Analytic intelligence (sometimes called tacit intelligence) is usually valued in high school and college, as students are expected to remember and analyze various ideas.
Creative intelligence is prized if life circumstance change and new challenges arise; it is more valued in some cultures and countries than others (Kaufman & Sternberg, 2006).
Practical intelligence helps adults in various ways—from maintaining a home and advancing a career to addressing the emotional needs of family members, neighbors, and colleagues (Blanchard-Fields, 2007). 7 7 7 7

8. Optimization and Compensation
Older adults must compensate for aging by selecting one task, to optimize their overall performance
Instruction:
This theory from 1990 was developed by Paul and Margaret Baltes.
Multitasking is one example of compensating for aging by doing selective optimization.
How does multitasking affect people as they get older?
Multitasking succeeds only when most of the tasks are automatic; deliberate reflection occurs one thought at a time. Thus, experienced drivers don’t need to think about steering, much like experienced CEOs usually need to just listen.
However, as people age their brains become less flexible. Thus their ability to multitask declines.
selective optimization with compensation: The theory that people try to maintain a balance in their lives by looking for the best way to compensate for physical and cognitive losses and to become more proficient in activities they can already do well. 8 8 8 8

9. Expert Cognition What are the qualities of expert thought?
Intuitive
Strategic
Novices follow formal procedures. Experts rely on their past experiences and on immediate context.
Experts have more and better strategies, especially when problems are unexpected (Omerod, 2005).
Expert cognition
Automatic
Flexible
Instruction:
Click repeatedly to reveal more about expert cognition.
Automatic thinking may explain why, despite powerful motivation, quicker reactions, and better vision, teenagers have far more car accidents than middle-aged drivers do.
A strategy used by expert team leaders in the military as well as in civilian life is ongoing communication, especially during slow times, so that when stress builds, no team member misinterprets the previously rehearsed plans, commands, and requirements.
Experts process incoming information more quickly and analyze it more efficiently than do non-experts and then act in a well-rehearsed way that makes their efforts appear unconscious.
Due to intuitive, automatic, strategic thinking, experts are also more flexible, deliberately experimenting and enjoying new challenges when things to do not go according to plan (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996). 9 9 9 9

10. Expertise and Age
women’s work: A term formerly used to denigrate domestic and caregiving tasks that were once thought to be the responsibility of females.
How has the shift in attitudes toward work that women do affect adult expertise?
U.S. Medical School Graduates, to
Men
Women
Number of graduates
18,000
16,000
14,000
12,000
10,000
Instructions:
Click the colored box in the graph key for “Men” and “Women” to reveal the corresponding measurements.
According to this data, the next time you hear “The doctor will see you now,” the physician is as likely to be a woman as a man—unless the doctor is over age 40.
According to the Seattle Longitudinal Study, the cognitive complexity of the occupations of more than 500 workers was measured, including the complexities involved in the workers’ interactions with other people, with things, and with data. In all three of these challenges, older workers maintained their intellectual prowess (Schaie, 2005).
Click to see a video about expertise.
In this video clip, an expert choral singer is interviewed.
Click to see another video about expertise.
In this video clip, Dr. Kenneth Davis of Mt. Sinai School of Medicine is interviewed.
8,000
6,000
4,000
2,000
Academic Year
Source: Association of American Medical Colleges, 2010.

11. Expertise: Interview with a Choral Singer
Expertise and Age
Instructions:
Click to play video.
What in this choral singer’s background led her to a position of expertise in her field?
Video:
Expertise: Interview with a Choral Singer

12. Expertise: The Work of an Expert Researcher
Expertise and Age
Instructions:
Click to play video.
How does Dr. Davis’s description of an experiment illustrate expertise?
Video:
Expertise: The Work of an Expert Researcher

13. Closing Thoughts
What types of cognitive challenges do you expect to become more easy, and which may be more difficult, as you go through the years of adulthood? 13