PSYC 3265 Chapter Notes - Chapter 15: Dentate Gyrus, Longitudinal Study, Episodic Memory
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Longitudinal study involves a sample of people is tested repeatedly for over many decades. Longitudinal designs is a method of studying development of aging whereby the same participants are tested at different ages. This problem is avoided if they use cross sectional design in which different groups of people are sampled across the age ranges and their performance is measured on a single occasion. But one cannot relate performance to earlier data or for future development in the individual. Both designs have a problem which is called cohort effect this is the tendency for people born at different time periods to differ as a result of historic changes in diet, education, and other social factors. Solution: combine longitudinal and cross sectional by adding new cohort of participants at each test point. Much research has relied on cross sectional studies, involving the comparison of a young and elderly sample (controlled: ses, education, etc)