Conservation Ability of Elderly Men Living in the Community and an Institution

Abstract

The present study assessed possible differences in decline of ability for logical operations for 10 elderly community residents and two elderly institutionalized groups (ns = 10). While 100% conservation was shown by the community group on two-dimensional space, number, substance, continuous quantity, weight, and discontinuous quantity, and 80% conservation of volume, the institutionalized groups showed much lower rates. The implication is that active elderly persons who reside in their own homes will not show the apparent decrement noted in earlier studies of institutionalized persons. The relationship between logical operations and fluid intelligence was supported by the diminished conservation performance of neurologically impaired institutionalized groups. Other sampling effects which might account for the differing results among studies were age and length of institutionalization.