Working Memory, Executive Control, and Aging

Research on cognitive aging seems to have three primary goals: first, to determine the extent to which the diversity of observed behavioral changes that occur with advancing age can be potentially explained by a small set of fundamental cognitive mechanisms or “primitives”; second, to thoroughly and explicitly specify the nature of these mechanisms, potentially by drawing links to underlying neurobiology or to more formalized descriptions of how such underlying mechanisms might bring about observable behavioral changes; and third, to use the knowledge gained in the pursuit of the first two goals to develop effective interventions that can minimize (or ideally, reverse) the effects of cognitive aging.