from North Carolina State University
Laboratory tests almost universally show that cognitive ability declines with age, so you would expect older adults to perform worse in situations that rely on abilities, such as job performance…but you don’t. Why? North Carolina State University professor Tom Hess, author of the study, says cognitive performance usually refers to how people fare under test conditions and cognitive functioning usually refers to our ability to deal with mental tasks in everyday life. Professor Hess introduces another issue—called selective engagement. The idea is that older adults are more likely to fully commit their mental resources to a task if they consider it personally meaningful. This would explain the disparity between cognitive performance and the real world cognitive functioning.