Abstract
Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition invites submissions of manuscripts for a special issue on the Cognitive and
Motivational Mechanisms Compensating for the Limitations in Performance on Complex Cognitive Tasks across the
Adult Life-Span to be Guest Edited by Grzegorz Sedek, Paul Verhaeghen and Mike Martin
The primary aim of the proposed special issue is to describe various cognitive and motivational mechanisms that allow
older adults to compensate for age-related limitations in performance on complex cognitive tasks. Research shows a clear
and marked monotonic decrease in basic fluid cognitive abilities from early adulthood through middle age to old age. The
age-related impairment, however, tends to be much smaller in more complex, assembled, and/or ecologically valid aspects
of cognitive functioning. Moreover, these tasks also show large interindividual differences. This appears to imply that
older adults do cope with increasing cognitive limitations by using various compensatory mechanisms. An adequate
description of these mechanisms could ultimately translate into practical interventions aimed at increasing the quality of
life of older adults. Such compensatory mechanisms may include cognitive strategies (e.g., focusing on integrative
reasoning rather than retrieval rehearsal for memory tasks), motivational strategies (e.g., decreasing the need for cognitive
closure in decision-making), or strategies of self-regulation (e.g., the ability to intentionally withdraw effort in difficult or
unsolvable tasks); they can be studied at the behavioral level or at the level of brain functioning. Given the dissociation
between age trajectories on basic cognitive tasks and complex tasks, it can be expected that older adults use such
mechanisms more frequently and/or more efficiently than younger adults. We invite submissions that further highlight the
nature of compensatory mechanisms in the service of performance on complex cognitive tasks across the adult life span.
Sedek, G