Craik Fergus I M, Bialystok Ellen
Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest, 3560 Bathurst Street, Toronto, Ontario M6A 2E1, Canada.
Trends Cogn Sci. 2006 Mar;10(3):131-8. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2006.01.007. Epub 2006 Feb 7.
Cognitive abilities rise steeply from infancy to young adulthood and then are either maintained or decline to old age, depending on the specific ability. This pattern suggests corresponding continuities of mechanism and process, but it is striking that the fields of cognitive development and cognitive aging make little contact with each other's methods and theories. In this review we examine reasons for this cultural separation, and show how recent findings from both areas fit a framework couched in terms of cognitive representation and control. These two broad factors have very different lifespan trajectories; consideration of their relative growth and decline makes it clear that cognitive aging is not simply 'development in reverse'. This framework is offered in light of recent interest in finding greater continuity throughout the lifespan and creating a more comprehensive explanation of cognitive function and cognitive change.
认知能力从婴儿期到青年期急剧上升，然后根据具体能力要么保持稳定，要么随着年龄增长而下降。这种模式表明了机制和过程的相应连续性，但令人惊讶的是，认知发展和认知老化领域在彼此的方法和理论上几乎没有联系。在这篇综述中，我们研究了这种文化分离的原因，并展示了这两个领域的最新发现如何符合一个以认知表征和控制为框架的理论。这两个广泛的因素具有非常不同的生命周期轨迹；考虑它们的相对增长和下降可以清楚地看出，认知老化不仅仅是“逆向发展”。鉴于最近人们对在整个生命周期中找到更大的连续性以及对认知功能和认知变化进行更全面解释的兴趣，我们提出了这个框架。
