A note on the relation between age and performance of adult subjects on four familiar psychometric tests

Abstract

To 375 men and 268 women who were members of borrower families of the FSA, a vocabulary test, the Knox cubes, Porteus mazes, and Fergusen form boards were administered. These persons ranged from 15 years of age to 76. Intercorrelations among the tests were rather low, ranging from .23 to .44; the correlation between median mental age on the tests and amount of schooling was .50. When test scores were plotted against age, the vocabulary test showed a rapid increase from 15 to 20 years, followed by a persistent rise up to the age of 55, at which point a slight drop occurred; with the remaining tests, there was a rapid decline in scores at the later ages. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)