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The Role of a Global Mechanism in Developmental Change in Speed of Processing

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Emerging Themes in Cognitive Development

Abstract

Improvements during childhood and adolescence in performance on speeded tasks are ubiquitous. For tasks such as scanning the contents of short-term memory, retrieving names from long-term memory, verifying the truth of arithmetic statements, and reasoning analogically, the results are the same: Adults respond substantially more rapidly than do children (e.g., Ashcraft & Fierman, 1982; Bisanz, Danner, & Resnick, 1979; Sternberg & Rifkin, 1979). It has been proposed that these results reflect some global mechanism (i.e., one not specific to a particular task) that limits the speed with which all processes can be executed (Hale, 1990; Kail, 1988). As this mechanism changes with age, all processes are executed more rapidly.

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Authors
  1. Robert Kail
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Memorial University, St. John’s, Newfoundland, A1B 3X9, Canada

    Mark L. Howe Ph.D.

  2. Department of Psychology, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, 22030, USA

    Robert Pasnak Ph.D.

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© 1993 Springer-Verlag New York Inc.

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Kail, R. (1993). The Role of a Global Mechanism in Developmental Change in Speed of Processing. In: Howe, M.L., Pasnak, R. (eds) Emerging Themes in Cognitive Development. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-9220-0_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-9220-0_4

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-9222-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4613-9220-0

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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