Exploring the relationships between sensory, physiological, genetic and health measures in relation to the common cause hypothesis

Abstract

Performance on speeded tasks and general ability tests is known to decline from relatively early in life. Sensory, respiratory, cardiovascular, muscular, and skeletal functioning also deteriorates, commencing in late adulthood and continuing into late old age. Many of the processes underlying changes in these different areas of functioning have similar developmental paths. Accordingly, it has been suggested that a single causal mechanism may be responsible for changes across certain domains of performance. The new challenge in cognitive aging is to determine the cause or causes of these demonstrated associations. This chapter outlines the state of research surrounding the common cause hypoth..