Cognitive aging: Expertise and fluid intelligence

Age-related declines in short-term apprehension and retrieval (SAR), processing speed (Gs) and attentiveness (ATT) account for some of the age-related declines in fluid reasoning (Gf). One prominent explanation of the causes of the aging declines is the theory of disuse or lack of practice. This study investigates whether or not frequent and intensive practice of the age-vulnerable cognitive abilities required in the development of expertise has positive effects over the course of cognitive aging. Expertise-specified subgroups, each with comparable wide age range, are constructed in the domain of CO (a chess-like game). Measures of ATT, Gs and SAR (elementary Gf processes) both within and outside the GO domain and established measures of Gf, as such, are obtained. Structural models specifying how the elementary processes account for age differences in Gf are compared across the three levels of practice (i.e., expertise). Results indicate that higher GO expertise is associated with higher means for the GO-embedded measures but not for measures outside the domain. In particular, high levels of expertise are associated with expanded working memory capacities within the GO domain. With very high levels of expertise, this expanded (long-term working) memory is substantially larger than the 4...