Analysis and Synthesis in Problem Solving and Aging

Abstract

In the literature on aging, the amount of research in problem solving is far less than that in other areas of cognition such as memory and intelligence, and this has been true for many years. No experimental research in problem solving was included in a review of intelligence and problem solving by Jones in 1959, although a few studies from the Nuffield Unit at Cambridge were reported about the same time (Welford, 1958). Even 14 years later it was possible to be virtually exhaustive in reviewing problem solving in a small segment of a chapter on cognition and aging (Arenberg, 1973).