ABSTRACT
The role of sensory functions (such as vision and hearing) as antecedents, correlates, and consequents of intellectual functioning has not been at the center of research on the aging of intelligence, some exceptions notwithstanding (Granick, Kleban, & Weiss, 1976; MacFarland, 1968; Nettelbeck & Rabbitt, 1992; Stelmach & Homberg, 1993). To be sure, sensory functioning has been mentioned in general conceptual frameworks developed to index the realm of intellectual functioning (e.g., Carroll, 1993; Horn & Hofer, 1992). Moreover; certain movements in the history of psychological theory, such as British empiricism or German elementarism (Hermstein & Boring, 1965; Hilgard, 1987), have attended to the role of sensory input in the development and regulation of cognitive behavior. However, despite these lines of argument, in hundreds of studies on cognitive aging (for reviews, see Craik & Salthouse, 1992; Salthouse, 1991b), sensory functioning and its relationship to
Data on the old-age sample (70-103 years) were collected as part of the Berlin Aging Study, which was sponsored by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences.
