Developmental research focuses on the progression of changes occurring in an organism as it develops. Developmental changes are irreversible. There exist several differences in the magnitudes of development between periods of several years of growth. The development research psychologists seek to understand what changes cause the difference. Considering a speed processing perspective, aging results in the slow cognitive processing speeds inclusive of all the processing components. A prediction of the mean response times of adults advanced in age in comparison to younger adults proves how the cognitive processes slow down with age advancement. The simple linear memory and aging functions account for 90% of the variances that are age related considering the various wide measures (Purser, 2006). Large scale path analysis and psychometric studies argue that processing speeds are the mediators between a variety of cognitive functions and age.
The cognitive function mainly studied was the memory functionality. As such, the perspectives of processing speeds explain the processing speed reduction and the age-related decrements in memory. Age is related to the general speed factors and memory performance as well. However, the relation between age and performance of the memory is weak after statistical controls are set up for controlling the processing speeds. Path analysis results prove that the performance of a person’s memory is dependent on the processing speeds. As such, age differences in memory are not a reflection of changes in processing memories per se but are just a reflection of the processing speeds. The old people process information slower than young adults leading to a theoretical account of cognitive performances related to age. Complicated cognitive tasks require attentional capacities that are different than the simple cognitive tasks.
