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Individual differences in cognitive processes underlying Trail Making Test-B performance in old age: The Lothian Birth Cohort 1936
The Trail Making Test Part B (TMT-B) is commonly used as a brief and simple neuropsychological assessment of executive dysfunction. The TMT-B is thought to rely on a number of distinct cognitive processes that predict individual differences in performance. The current study examined the unique and s...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Elsevier
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6588265/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31293282 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2019.04.001 |
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author | MacPherson, Sarah E. Allerhand, Michael Cox, Simon R. Deary, Ian J. |
author_facet | MacPherson, Sarah E. Allerhand, Michael Cox, Simon R. Deary, Ian J. |
author_sort | MacPherson, Sarah E. |
collection | PubMed |
description | The Trail Making Test Part B (TMT-B) is commonly used as a brief and simple neuropsychological assessment of executive dysfunction. The TMT-B is thought to rely on a number of distinct cognitive processes that predict individual differences in performance. The current study examined the unique and shared contributions of latent component variables in a large cohort of older people. Five hundred and eighty-seven healthy, community-dwelling older adults who were all born in 1936 were assessed on the TMT-B and multiple tasks tapping cognitive domains of visuospatial ability, processing speed, memory and reading ability. Firstly, a first-order measurement model examining independent contributions of the four cognitive domains was fitted; a significant relationship between TMT-B completion times and processing speed was found (β = −0.610, p < .001). Secondly, a bifactor model examined the unique influence of each cognitive ability when controlling for a general cognitive factor. Importantly, both a general cognitive factor (g; β = −0.561, p < .001) and additional g-independent variance from processing speed (β = −0.464, p < .001) contributed to successful TMT-B performance. These findings suggest that older adults' TMT-B performance is influenced by both general intelligence and processing speed, which may help understand poor performance on such tasks in clinical populations. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6588265 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | Elsevier |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-65882652019-07-08 Individual differences in cognitive processes underlying Trail Making Test-B performance in old age: The Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 MacPherson, Sarah E. Allerhand, Michael Cox, Simon R. Deary, Ian J. Intelligence Article The Trail Making Test Part B (TMT-B) is commonly used as a brief and simple neuropsychological assessment of executive dysfunction. The TMT-B is thought to rely on a number of distinct cognitive processes that predict individual differences in performance. The current study examined the unique and shared contributions of latent component variables in a large cohort of older people. Five hundred and eighty-seven healthy, community-dwelling older adults who were all born in 1936 were assessed on the TMT-B and multiple tasks tapping cognitive domains of visuospatial ability, processing speed, memory and reading ability. Firstly, a first-order measurement model examining independent contributions of the four cognitive domains was fitted; a significant relationship between TMT-B completion times and processing speed was found (β = −0.610, p < .001). Secondly, a bifactor model examined the unique influence of each cognitive ability when controlling for a general cognitive factor. Importantly, both a general cognitive factor (g; β = −0.561, p < .001) and additional g-independent variance from processing speed (β = −0.464, p < .001) contributed to successful TMT-B performance. These findings suggest that older adults' TMT-B performance is influenced by both general intelligence and processing speed, which may help understand poor performance on such tasks in clinical populations. Elsevier 2019 /pmc/articles/PMC6588265/ /pubmed/31293282 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2019.04.001 Text en © 2019 The Authors http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article MacPherson, Sarah E. Allerhand, Michael Cox, Simon R. Deary, Ian J. Individual differences in cognitive processes underlying Trail Making Test-B performance in old age: The Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 |
title | Individual differences in cognitive processes underlying Trail Making Test-B performance in old age: The Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 |
title_full | Individual differences in cognitive processes underlying Trail Making Test-B performance in old age: The Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 |
title_fullStr | Individual differences in cognitive processes underlying Trail Making Test-B performance in old age: The Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 |
title_full_unstemmed | Individual differences in cognitive processes underlying Trail Making Test-B performance in old age: The Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 |
title_short | Individual differences in cognitive processes underlying Trail Making Test-B performance in old age: The Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 |
title_sort | individual differences in cognitive processes underlying trail making test-b performance in old age: the lothian birth cohort 1936 |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6588265/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31293282 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2019.04.001 |
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