THE MISSING PERSON Some Limitations in the Contemporary Study of Cognitive Aging

This chapter offers a sociological perspective on cognition, human development, and aging. The sociological lens brings into focus several questions that receive relatively little attention in the prevailing discourses of cognitive aging yet are fundamental to an adequate understanding of age, cognition, and their interrelationship. These questions concern both the explanandum (the phenomenon to be explained, in this case, cognitive aging) and the explanans (the explanations—the causal forces that must be taken into account in understanding cognitive aging). A sociological perspective contends that the explanans of cognitive agerelated outcomes cannot be understood without a systematic consideration of both social structure and human action. In the second section of this chapter, we explore how cohort analysis and related developments open a new set of questions concerning the explanans of aging. In the third section, we consider the implications of a sociological perspective for considering the explananda—the range of phemomena that comprise the subject matter of cognitive aging that includes some distinctly human dimensions of cognitive performance. These issues have implications for research questions and thus for the kinds of data and evidence that are marshaled for assessing cognitive aging. Our intent is to encourage a reconsideration and clarification of some of the basic premises and objectives of the field.