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This chapter presents an overview of the phenomena of adult cognitive development. It lays out the reasons why intelligence in adulthood should be studied by giving a brief history of the study of adult intelligence. It points out that intellectual competence attains increasing importance from middle adulthood onwards, when level of intellectual competence may determine job retention. It discusses whether independent living within the community remains possible in later life, and considers maintenance of control over financial decision making. A conceptual model is then given to tackle the developmental influences that have an impact on the life course of cognition. The model provides the rationale for the various influences related to cognitive development. An account is then given of the history and objectives of the Seattle Longitudinal Study.

This chapter presents conclusions from the Seattle Longitudinal Study. The lessons learned are reviewed in the context of the five questions considered in this book regarding the life course of intellectual competence, and the conclusions reached from interventions in the normal course of adult cognitive development are discussed. The findings from studies designed to learn more about adult cognition in a developmental behavior, genetic, and/or family context are described, along with findings from extensions into identifying the genetic and environmental influences that shape adult intellectual development. The chapter ends by providing information on how to access certain limited data sets from the SLS that are being made available for use by qualified researchers and college teachers for secondary analyses or instructional purposes.

The concentration of this chapter is on Avicenna’s account of the theoretical intellect (his account of the so-called practical intellect is deferred until chapter 8), beginning with his discussion of the stages of intellectual development. It next turns to the nature of the human theoretical intellect, and considers Avicenna’s arguments for the human intellect’s immateriality, its temporal origination, and also its incorruptibility, that is, its immortality. After discussing these topics, Avicenna’s theory about the Active Intellect and intellectual memory are taken up. There is then an extended discussion of Avicenna’s views concerning self-awareness. The chapter concludes by considering his naturalistic account of prophecy.

The Life Complexity Inventory (LCI) has been used since 1974 to characterize the microenvironment of participants in the Seattle Longitudinal Study. Early analyses of this instrument identified eight lifestyle factors that were related to measures of intellectual abilities. Low-to-modest positive correlations were found between amount of leisure activity and levels of cognitive functioning. Positive lifestyle characteristics were also correlated with high levels of cognitive functioning, with the dimensions of prestige, social status, and work characteristics showing the highest correlations. This chapter discusses lifestyle variables that affect intellectual functioning. Family similarity in lifestyles was examined for parent-offspring and sibling dyads, along with the effects of work characteristics and retirement on cognitive functions.

This chapter describes the pilot studies that led to the selection and validation of the measures used in the Seattle Longitudinal Study. The 1956 baseline study is presented and its findings are compared with the six cross-sectional replications. For purposes of an orderly presentation, the basic cognitive battery that is common to all study cycles is analyzed. Data for the fifth, sixth, and seventh cycles for the extended cognitive battery and the practical intelligence measures are then presented. Finally, the cross-sectional findings for the measures of cognitive style (Test of Behavioral Rigidity, TBR) are discussed.

This chapter presents evidence on the distinctiveness of cognitive styles of motor-cognitive flexibility, attitudinal flexibility, and psychomotor speed from the domain of psychometric intelligence as measured in the Seattle Longitudinal Study. The concurrent and predictive relationships for the domains utilizing the cognitive style and core battery primary mental ability variables over the age ranges studied are then considered, along with similar data for the latent ability constructs over the seven- and fourteen-year periods. The predictive direction is identified to lead from the cognitive style measures to the ability measures of verbal meaning, number, and word fluency in the core battery and to the latent construct measures of verbal and numeric ability.

This chapter presents the database for the Seattle Longitudinal Study and details the study participants and the measurement battery. The chapter also discusses, in addition to the cognitive ability measures, the neuropsychological assessment battery; measures of cognitive style; everyday problem solving; self-reported cognitive change; lifestyles, health status, health behaviors, and the subjective environment; as well as measures of personality traits and attitudes.

This chapter reviews the central core of the Seattle Longitudinal Study: the results from the longitudinal inquiries. The longitudinal studies consist of six seven-year follow-ups, five fourteen-year follow-ups, four twenty-one-year follow-ups, three twenty-eight-year follow-ups, two thirty-five-year follow-ups, and one forty-two-year follow-up. The longitudinal database is integrated to provide estimates of age changes based on the largest available number of study participants for each age interval. To permit comparison with the cross-sectional findings, the base mean-level estimates were set to the observed average values across all cohorts for participants tested at age 53 (the average age of the total sample). The average intra-individual age changes aggregated across all cohorts for which each age interval is available were then cumulated and added to or subtracted from these base values. These predicted values are provided for the total sample as well as being separately by gender.

This chapter reports the results of the cognitive intervention studies and their long-term follow-up and replication with new cohorts, as part of the Seattle Longitudinal Study. These studies lead to the conclusion that, for many persons, cognitive decline in old age may be a function of disuse rather than deterioration of the physiological substrates of cognitive behavior. A brief five-hour training program on the abilities of Inductive Reasoning and Spatial Orientation involving individual tutorials was designed to improve the performance of participants above the age of sixty-four years. Participants were assigned either to training in the ability on which they had declined or randomly to one of the two training conditions if they had declined or remained stable on both abilities.

What the writings of the exiles demonstrate is the open and cosmopolitan nature of Risorgimento patriotism, based on the desire to imitate external models and combine them in an original fashion with autochthonous traditions. It can be argued that exile liberalism was neither backward not exceptional if compared to its European counterparts. Indeed it was conversant with all the most important contemporary intellectual trends, and represented a wide variety of them. What made it peculiar was not its inadequacy, but rather its ability to combine trans-national intellectual developments and foreign political models with the legacy of the Italian Enlightenment.

This chapter reports findings regarding cohort and period differences in cognitive abilities as well as on other variables included in the Seattle Longitudinal Study. Here, expanded operational definitions are provided for the computation of cohort and period effects and cumulative findings through the seventh study cycle are expanded and updated. Possible applications of the period effect estimates are considered. An example is provided of how corrections for cohort and period effects can be applied to adjust longitudinal estimates to obtain increased generalizability.

This chapter summarizes several methodological issues, including certain research design and analysis paradigms, related to the Seattle Longitudinal Study. The discussion begins with a brief exposition of the relationship between cross-sectional and longitudinal data within the context of the general developmental model, followed by a presentation of the rationale for a variety of simple and sequential schemes for data acquisition and analysis. The problems of internal validity of developmental studies and designs for the measurement and control that plague developmental studies are explored. The chapter ends by exploring the relationship between observed measures and latent (unobserved) variables, and how confirmatory (restricted) factor analysis can be applied to assess construct equivalence across cohorts, age, and time in the study of developmental problems.

This chapter discusses four theoretical approaches—psychometric theories, information-processing theories, Piagetian and neo-Piagetian theories, and contextualist theories—and the associated methodologies that are used to understand intelligence and intellectual development. It then reflects on a relatively new theory that, following from the triarchic theory of intelligence, conceptualizes abilities as competencies in development. This multifaceted account of intelligence has been proposed to integrate what are often considered to be disparate paradigms. The triarchic theory of intelligence comprises three subtheories: a componential subtheory dealing with the (universal) components of intelligence; a contextual subtheory dealing with processes of adaptation, shaping, and selection; and an experiential subtheory dealing with the importance of coping with novelty and automatization. This chapter also examines experience and cognitive capacity as determinants of intellectual development.

This chapter describes some of the methodological studies that were conducted as part of the Seattle Longitudinal Study. The discussion mentions the shift from a sampling-without-replacement paradigm to one that involved sampling with replacement, as well as the issue of the aging of tests and results from an investigation designed to determine whether switching to more recently constructed tests would be appropriate in the context of the longitudinal study (1975 collateral study). The possible effect of repeated measurement designs in understating cognitive decline is considered and analyses that adjust for practice effects are presented. The issue of structural equivalence across cohorts, age, time, and gender is also explored.

This chapter considers the retrospective literature on Charles Darwin's work. These views on Darwin's intellectual development and legacy, such as that posited by Loren Eiseley, began the way many classes on the history of modern biology still begin: by emphasizing early-modern scientific empiricism and the desire of Enlightenment natural historians to catalog and classify all living species according to a great scale of nature. Against this background, Eiseley posited, evolutionary thinking—the idea that species have not been static in time, but some have gone extinct and others slowly evolved into new forms—emerged in France, rising from the secularized ashes of the revolutionary republic. Eiseley made clear that Darwin's legacy therefore rested on his innovative mechanism explaining the transformation of species. Like Eiseley, the retrospective essays and books published in the years after pointed to Darwin's theory of natural selection as his “most important generalization.”

This chapter discusses Meister Eckhart's life and works around the year 1300. Eckhart was from Tambach, near Gotha, during the time of the Interregnum (1254–1273). In 1294, Eckhart preached his Easter sermon in Paris, and Boniface VIII came to power in Rome on Christmas Eve after pressuring Celestine V to abdicate. A powerful personality, Boniface believed that he was God's representative on earth, Europe's sovereign, and feudal lord of the emperors. In the final decades of Eckhart's life, Germany had two kings, who were simultaneously elected in 1314: Frederick the Fair of Austria and Louis IV of Bavaria. The pope does not feature as a religious figure in Eckhart's works; he was opposed to the politics of the papacy, although he recognized its spiritual function. This chapter also considers how Eckhart was impacted by intellectual developments of thirteenth-century Europe and how he was perceived and received by his contemporaries.

This chapter addresses how humans can develop the ability to reason. The correct synthesis that explicates intellectual development must combine genes and experience. It is assumed that the vast differences in the ability to reason from one person to another are attributable to two factors: differences in knowledge and differences in computational power. The way to increase computational power is to increase working memory. Different aspects of mental architecture are evaluated. Much of a person's reasoning may have developed from innate abilities. They underlie the construction of models from perception, imagination, and language. The development of language depends on both nature and nurture. Reasoning may also depend on an innate basis for imagining possibilities, and for manipulating models of them. Its development rests on the growth of knowledge, including concepts and meanings, and on an increase in the capacity of working memory.