does age affect iq

Introduction

The relationship between age and IQ has been a subject of extensive research, with studies examining how cognitive abilities evolve over the lifespan. This synthesis aims to present key insights from multiple research papers to address the question: "Does age affect IQ?"

Key Insights

Age-Related Decline in Cognitive Performance:
- Performance declines with age, but the decline is not significantly different between individuals with low and high IQs .
- Older adults show increased variability in timing tasks, although they can still perform accurately on average.
Impact of IQ on Cognitive Aging:
- Higher IQ in adolescence is associated with a younger subjective age in later life, suggesting that early cognitive ability influences how old individuals feel as they age.
- Childhood IQ has a significant impact on cognitive function and health outcomes in old age, with higher childhood IQ linked to better cognitive performance and lower mortality risk before age 65 .
Heritability and Environmental Influence:
- The heritability of IQ increases with age, reaching an asymptote around 0.80 by late adolescence and continuing into adulthood, while shared environmental influences decrease.
Differentiation of Cognitive Abilities:
- Age may moderate the effect of IQ on the differentiation of cognitive abilities during childhood, with the strength of relationships among cognitive subtests evolving with age.

Conclusion

In summary, while cognitive performance generally declines with age, this decline is not significantly different between individuals with varying IQ levels. Higher IQ in early life is associated with better cognitive outcomes and health in later life. The heritability of IQ increases with age, and early cognitive abilities can influence subjective age and overall well-being in old age. These findings highlight the complex interplay between age, IQ, and cognitive aging.

Does age affect iq

Summary

Consensus Meter

Introduction

Key Insights

Conclusion

Sources and full results

Individual differences, aging, and IQ in two-choice tasks

Aging and IQ have larger effects on slower responses than faster responses in two-choice tasks, with IQ having a greater impact on the quality of evidence used for decisions.

Does age moderate the effect of IQ on the differentiation of cognitive abilities during childhood

IQ-related differentiation in cognitive abilities occurs during childhood, with higher IQ individuals showing stronger relationships among subtests as they age.

The Wilson Effect: The Increase in Heritability of IQ With Age

The heritability of IQ increases with age, reaching an asymptote of 0.80 at 18-20 years of age and continuing at that level well into adulthood, while shared environmental influence decreases across age.

Effects of aging and IQ on item and associative memory.

Aging and IQ have complex interactions on item and associative memory, with IQ affecting drift rate and recall performance, while age has small effects on boundary separation and nondecision time.

Higher IQ in adolescence is related to a younger subjective age in later life: Findings from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study

Higher IQ in adolescence is associated with a younger subjective age in later life, with openness acting as a mediator.

The impact of childhood intelligence on later life: following up the Scottish mental surveys of 1932 and 1947.

Childhood intelligence has a significant impact on survival and health in old age, with stable IQ scores from age 11 to 80, sex differences in cognitive aging, and a dedifferentiation hypothesis of cognitive aging.

Age and IQ effects on stimulus and response timing

Increased age and decreasing IQ tend to increase variability in judgments of duration, but overall accuracy in timing tasks remains generally consistent across groups.

Smoking, childhood IQ, and cognitive function in old age.

Smoking in old age contributes to small impairments in general cognitive ability and processing speed, even after accounting for childhood IQ and adult socioeconomic status.

Childhood IQ and all-cause mortality before and after age 65: prospective observational study linking the Scottish Mental Survey 1932 and the Midspan studies.

Childhood IQ is significantly related to deaths before age 65, but not to deaths after age 65.

Psychological and physical health at age 70 in the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936: links with early life IQ, SES, and current cognitive function and neighborhood environment.

High early-life IQ at age 11 can buffer the effects of adverse environments on physical and mental health problems in old age.

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