Synonyms
Latency; Response
Definition
Response time refers to the time between an input and an output. In cognitive psychology, this is typically the time needed for some task, from the moment the stimulus is presented to the moment a response is emitted, measured most often by the time elapsed between the appearance of the relevant stimulus and an appropriate key press. Response times of an individual can be characterized in many ways – most often, the central tendency (mean or median) is what researchers focus on, but the dispersion (variance or standard deviation) and skew can be of interest as well. In an aging context, most of the work has focused on changes in mean response times, sometimes labeled “age-related slowing,” and what these changes can teach us about aging in different subsystems of the cognitive substrate.
Age-Related Slowing in Basic Response-Time Tasks
It is no surprise that, generally speaking, older adults take longer than younger adults to process information....
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Anderson, M., & Reid, C. (2005). Intelligence. In M. Hewstone, F. D. Fincham, & J. Foster (Eds.), Psychology (pp. 268–290). Oxford: Blackwell.
Anstey, K. J. (2008). Biomarkers and cognitive ageing: What do we know and where to from here? In S. M. Hofer & D. Alwin (Eds.), Handbook of cognitive aging (pp. 327–339). Thousand Okas: Sage.
Bäckman, L., Ginovart, N., Dixon, R. A., Wahlin, T. B. R., Halldin, C., & Farde, L. (2000). Age-related cognitive deficits mediated by changes in the striatal dopamine system. American Journal of Psychiatry, 157, 635–637.
Baron, A., & Cerella, J. (1993). Laboratory tests of the disuse account of cognitive decline. In J. Cerella, W. Hoyer, J. Rybash, & M. Commons (Eds.), Adult information processing: Limits on loss (pp. 175–203). San Diego: Academic.
Braver, T. S., & West, R. L. (2008). Working memory, executive processes, and aging. In F. I. Craik & T. A. Salthouse (Eds.), Handbook of aging and cognition (3rd ed., pp. 311–372). New York: Erlbaum.
Brinley, J. F. (1965). Cognitive sets, speed and accuracy of performance in the elderly. In A. T. Welford & J. E. Birren (Eds.), Behavior, aging and the nervous system (pp. 114–149). Springfield: Thomas.
Cerella, J., & Hale, S. (1994). The rise and fall in information-processing rates over the life span. Acta Psychologica, 86, 109–197.
Cerella, J., Poon, L. W., & Williams, D. H. (1980). Age and the complexity hypothesis. In L. W. Poon (Ed.), Aging in the 1980s (pp. 332–340). Washington: American Psychological Association.
Dosenbach, N. U., Nardos, B., Cohen, A. L., Fair, D. A., Power, J. D., Church, J. A., … Schlaggar, B. L. (2010). Prediction of individual brain maturity using fMRI. Science, 329, 1358–1361.
Hillman, C. H., Erickson, K. I., & Kramer, A. F. (2008). Be smart, exercise your heart: Exercise effects on brain and cognition. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 9, 58–65.
Hoyer, S. (2002). The aging brain: Changes in the neuronal insulin/insulin receptor signal transduction cascade trigger late-onset sporadic Alzheimer disease (SAD): A mini-review. Journal of Neural Transmission, 109, 991–1002.
MacDonald, S. W. S., & Stawski, R. S. (2015). Intraindividual variability: An indicator of vulnerability or resilience in adult development and aging? In M. Diehl, K. Hooker, & M. J. Sliwinski (Eds.), Handbook of intraindividual variability across the life span (pp. 231–257). New York: Routlege.
MacDonald, S. W. S., Hultsch, D. F., & Dixon, R. A. (2008). Predicting impending death: Inconsistency in speed is a selective and early marker. Psychology and Aging, 23, 595–607.
Miyake, A., Friedman, N. P., Emerson, M. J., Witzki, A. H., Howerter, A., & Wager, T. D. (2000). The unity and diversity of executive functions and their contributions to complex “frontal lobe” tasks: A latent variable analysis. Cognitive Psychology, 41, 49–100.
Oberauer, K., Süß, H. M., Schulze, R., Wilhelm, O., & Wittmann, W. W. (2000). Working memory capacity – Facets of a cognitive ability construct. Personality and Individual Differences, 29, 1017–1045.
Penke, L., Maniega, S. M., Murray, C., Gow, A. J., Hernández, M. C. V., Clayden, J. D., Starr, J. M., Wardlaw, J. M., Bastin, M. E., & Deary, I. J. (2010). A general factor of brain white matter integrity predicts information processing speed in healthy older people. Journal of Neuroscience, 30, 7569–7574.
Rabbitt, P. (1993). Does it all go together when it goes? The Nineteenth Bartlett Memorial Lecture. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 46, 385–434.
Ratcliff, R. (2008). Modeling aging effects on two-choice tasks: Response signal and response time data. Psychology and Aging, 23, 900–916.
Sheppard, L. D., & Vernon, P. A. (2008). Intelligence and speed of information-processing: A review of 50 years of research. Personality and Individual Differences, 44, 535–551.
Shipley, B. A., Der, G., Taylor, M. D., & Deary, I. J. (2006). Cognition and all-cause mortality across the entire adult age range: Health and lifestyle survey. Psychosomatic Medicine, 68, 17–24.
Verhaeghen, P. (2014). The elements of cognitive aging: Meta-analyses of age-related differences in processing speed and their consequences. Oxford: New York.
Verhaeghen, P., & Salthouse, T. (1997). A.: Meta-analyses of age-cognition relations in adult- hood: Estimates of linear and non-linear age effects and structural models. Psychological Bulletin, 122, 231–249.
Walhovd, K. B., Westlye, L. T., Amlien, I., Espeseth, T., Reinvang, I., Raz, N., … Fjell, A. M. (2011). Consistent neuroanatomical age-related volume differences across multiple samples. Neurobiology of Aging, 32, 916–932.
Welford, A. T. (1977). Motor performance. In J. E. Birren & K. W. Schaie (Eds.), Handbook of the psychology of aging (pp. 450–496). New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore
About this entry
Cite this entry
Verhaeghen, P. (2017). Age-Related Slowing in Response Times, Causes and Consequences. In: Pachana, N.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Geropsychology. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-082-7_211
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-082-7_211
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-287-081-0
Online ISBN: 978-981-287-082-7
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesReference Module Biomedical and Life Sciences