Age related differences in Executive, Social and Creative Cognition in Neurologically Healthy Adults

Despite evidence of aging-related decline in frontal lobe and associated executive cognitive functions, findings in relation to social and creative cognition have been inconclusive. The present study examined executive, social and creative cognition, as well as crystallized and fluid intelligence, in a community sample of 88 neurologically healthy participants (61 females, 27 males) ranging in age from 25 to 85 years, with the goal of detecting agingrelated differences in these cognitive domains. Social cognition was operationalized using a Theory of Mind task. Creative cognition was operationalized using verbal and non-verbal idea fluency tasks. Executive cognition was operationalized via the Stroop and Wisconsin Card Sorting tests. Although the indices of executive cognition and fluid intelligence showed
expected age-related differences, creative cognition showed no relationship with age, and performance on the social cognition task appeared to be compensated for by age-relatedincrease in crystallized intelligence. Despite the issue of cohort effects, results are consistent with the notion that compensatory processes may help maintain social and creative cognitive functioning in normal aging.