| Abstract: | "Advances in medicine and technology have dramatically extended our average life span. Despite these breakthroughs, cognitive longevity continues to vary among individuals. What causes a person's intelligence to diminish over a lifetime? What are the effects of this cognitive aging, and to what are these individual differences attributed? In two landmark and world-famous studies, over 150,000 eleven-year-olds participated in Scottish national intelligence tests, known as the Scottish Mental Surveys, which are the only studies to date to test an entire population. Over the past 10 years, Ian J. Deary, Lawrence J. Whalley, and John M. Starr have conducted follow-up studies with many of these now elderly participants. Using the latest testing assessments and technology, they have further investigated the roles of biological and sociobehavioral factors in cognitive aging. This book is important to many fields and will surely become the source to consult on anything related to IQ and its effects on cognitive aging and physical longevity. It masterfully captures a lifetime of intelligence, from childhood to about age 80, and also explores general matters of intelligence. Does having a high childhood IQ affect one's likelihood of being ill later in life or surviving to old age? Does it affect happiness later in life? Does being a twin affect childhood intelligence? These questions and more are explored in depth in this groundbreaking book"--Jacket. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved). |
|---|