What are the fundamental mechanisms of decision making, processing speed, memory and cognitive control? How do these give rise to individual differences, and how do they change as people age? How are these mechanisms implemented in neural unctions, in particular the functions of the frontal lobe? How do they relate to the demands of everyday, 'real life' behaviour? Over almost five decades, Pat Rabbitt has been among the most distinguished of British cognitive psychologists. His work has been widely influential in theories of mental speed, cognitive control and aging, influencing research in experimental psychology, neuropsychology and individual differences. This volume, dedicated to Pat Rabbitt, brings together a distinguished group of 16 contributors actively pursuing research in the fields of speed, memory, and control, and the application of these fields to individual differences and aging. With the latest work from senior figures in the field, and a focus on fundamental topics in both teaching and research, the book will be valuable to students and scientists in experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience.

Section I: Reaction time and mental speed 1. Ageing and response times: a comparison of sequential sampling models, Roger Ratcliff, Anjali Thapar, Philip L. Smith & Gail McKoon 2. Inconsistency in response time as an indicator of cognitive ageing, David F. Hultsch, Michael A. Hunter, Stuart W. S. MacDonald & Esther Strauss 3. Ageing and the ability to ignore irrelevant information in visual search and enumeration tasks, Elizabeth A. Maylor & Derrick G. Watson 4. Individual differences and cognitive models of the mind: using the differentiation hypothesis to distinguish general and specific cognitive processes, Mike Anderson & Jeff Nelson 5. Reaction time parameters, intelligence aging and death: the West of Scotland Twenty-07 study, Ian J. Deary & Geoff Der 6. The wrong tree: time perception and time experience in the elderly, John Wearden Section II: Cognitive control and frontal lobe function 7. The chronometrics of task-set control, Stephen Monsell 8. An evaluation of the frontal lobe theory of cognitive ageing, Louise H. Phillips & Julie D. Henry 9. The gateway hypothesis of rostral prefrontal cortex (area 10) function, Paul W. Burgess, Jon S. Simons, Iroise Dumontheil & Sam J. Gilbert 10. Prefrontal cortex and Spearman's g, John Duncan Section III: Memory and age 11. On reducing age-related declines in memory and executive control, Fergus I. M. Craik 12. Working memory and ageing, Alan Baddeley, Hilary Baddeley, Dino Chincotta, Simona Luzzi & Christobel Meikle 13. The own-age effect in face recognition, Timothy J. Perfect & Helen C. Moon Section IV: Real-world cognition 14. Cognitive ethology: giving real life to attention research, Alan Kingstone, Daniel Smilek, Elina Birmingham, Dave Cameron & Walter Bischof 15. Are automated actions beyond conscious access?, Peter McLeod, Peter Sommerville & Nick Reed 16. Operator functional state: the prediction of breakdown in human performance, Robert J. Hockey