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Age and Intraindividual Variability

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Encyclopedia of Geropsychology

Synonyms

Inconsistency; Reaction time variability; Within-person variability

Definition

Intraindividual variability is broadly defined as the fluctuation in an individual’s cognitive performance over time. This can refer to the moment-to-moment fluctuation in reaction time on a single task, variation across multiple tasks in a cognitive battery, or a single task repeated over a period of days, months, or years.

Background

While cognitive and experimental psychologists have long been interested in age differences as reflected by mean level of performance on a particular task, there has been increasing recent interest in the way that individuals vary over time. This intraindividual variability (IIV), also referred to as within-person variability and inconsistency, is not only of interest to researchers in ageing but also to researchers in several other fields (e.g., schizophrenia, attention deficit hyperactive disorder) as it may provide valuable insights into a variety of issues...

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Correspondence to David Bunce .

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Haynes, B.I., Bauermeister, S., Bunce, D. (2016). Age and Intraindividual Variability. In: Pachana, N. (eds) Encyclopedia of Geropsychology. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-080-3_156-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-080-3_156-1

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