Cognitive abilities, including general intelligence and domain-specific abilities such as fluid reasoning, comprehension knowledge, working memory capacity, and processing speed, are regarded as some of the most stable psychological traits, yet there exist no large-scale systematic efforts to document the specific patterns by which their rank-order stability changes over age and time interval, or how their stability differs across abilities, tests, and populations. Determining the conditions under which cognitive abilities exhibit high or low degrees of stability is critical not just to theory development but to applied contexts in which cognitive assessments guide decisions regarding treatment and intervention decisions with lasting consequences for individuals. In order to supplement this important area of research, we present a meta-analysis of longitudinal studies investigating the stability of cognitive abilities. The meta-analysis relied on data from 205 longitudinal studies that involved a total of 87,408 participants, resulting in 1,288 test-retest correlation coefficients among manifest variables. For an age of 20 years and a test-retest interval of 5 years, we found a mean rank-order stability of ρ = .76. The effect of mean sample age on stability was best described by a negative exponential function, with low stability in preschool children, rapid increases in stability in childhood, and consistently high stability from late adolescence to late adulthood. This same functional form continued to best describe age trends in stability after adjusting for test reliability. Stability declined with increasing test-retest interval. This decrease flattened out from an interval of approximately 5 years onward. According to the age and interval moderation models, minimum stability sufficient for individual-level diagnostic decisions (rtt = .80) can only be expected over the age of 7 and for short time intervals in children. In adults, stability levels meeting this criterion are obtained for over 5 years. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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认知能力的稳定性：纵向研究的荟萃分析回顾。


认知能力，包括一般智力和特定领域的能力，如流畅推理、理解知识、工作记忆能力和处理速度，被认为是一些最稳定的心理特征，但目前还没有大规模的系统性努力来记录这些特征。他们的排名顺序稳定性随年龄和时间间隔变化的特定模式，或者他们的稳定性在不同能力、测试和人群中有何不同。确定认知能力表现出高或低稳定性的条件不仅对于理论发展至关重要，而且对于认知评估指导有关治疗和干预决策的应用环境至关重要，对个人产生持久的影响。为了补充这一重要的研究领域，我们对调查认知能力稳定性的纵向研究进行了荟萃分析。该荟萃分析依赖于 205 项纵向研究的数据，总共涉及 87,408 名参与者，得出显性变量之间的 1,288 个重测相关系数。对于 20 岁的年龄和 5 年的重测间隔，我们发现平均排序稳定性为 ρ = 0.76。平均样本年龄对稳定性的影响最好用负指数函数来描述，学龄前儿童的稳定性较低，儿童期的稳定性快速增加，从青春期后期到成年后期的稳定性始终较高。在调整测试可靠性后，相同的函数形式继续最好地描述稳定性的年龄趋势。稳定性随着重测间隔的增加而下降。这种下降在大约 5 年之后趋于平缓。 根据年龄和间隔调节模型，只有在 7 岁以上且儿童时间间隔较短的情况下，才能预期达到足以进行个体水平诊断决策的最低稳定性 (rtt = .80)。对于成人，满足该标准的稳定性水平可以持续 5 年以上。 （PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2024 APA，保留所有权利）。