title: The role of sensory factors in cognitive aging research.
abstract: Performance on complex, cognitive tasks often is sensitive to low-level sensory and perceptual factors. These relations are particularly important for cognitive aging researchers because aging is associated with a variety of changes in sensory and perceptual function. In the article that follows, I first selectively outline some relations between task performance and sensory function. Next, I summarize age-related changes in visual function and the implications of these changes for task performance, using the digit-symbol subtest of the WAIS as an example. I offer some reasons why age-related sensory decline may not be important to all cognitive tasks. Finally, I provide several recommendations for cognitive gerontologists who want to minimize the risk that the age differences they observe are sensory in nature.
authors.affiliation: Departement of Psychology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4. scialfa@ucalgary.ca
authors.forename: Charles T
authors.initials: CT
authors.lastname: Scialfa
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D006801:Humans; D010468:Perceptual Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*