Academic Press Aging and Creativity

Product Description Aging and Creativity examines the effects of aging on creative functioning, including age-related changes in cognition, personality, and motivation that affect performance or output. The book reviews and summarizes both lab-based and real-world-based studies. Changes in working memory, speed of processing, learning efficiency, and retrieval from long-term memory are all discussed as factors influencing creativity, as are health changes and changes in social roles with later age. The book concludes with practical implications of age effects on creativity for older people in work and everyday life. Review Reference examining how creative processes and thinking change over the course of the lifespan From the Back Cover Aging and Creativity examines the effects of cognitive aging on creative functioning. It looks at different aspects of cognition such as working memory, speed of processing, learning efficiency, and retrieval from long term memory. The book goes on to explain the degree to which changes in these different cognitive functions affect creative thinking, and considers the aging-associated changes in personality, life course issues, and motivation that will affect real world creative performance. Using both laboratory-based approaches, which seek to untangle the contributions of different functions to creativity, as revealed by aging effects, and also real world studies of aging effects on every day and on high level creative behaviour, the book concludes with practical implications of age effects on creativity for older people in work, education, and everyday life. About the Author Dr Gilhooly’s research is in the area of human cognitive psychology, especially thinking and problem solving and effects of age on cognition and well-being. His emphasis recently has been on collaborative work at Brunel University London on aging, dementia, and on decision-making among professionals dealing with elder financial abuse.Dr. Gilhooly’s research focusses on financial elder abuse; posterior cortical atrophy and Alzheimer’s Disease; radiation exposure, exposure worry, and cognitive functioning; and lay concepts of dementia.