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National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79)

Cognition

This repository is under review for potential modification in compliance with Administration directives.

Created variables

COGNITION_SOURCEYR: The survey year in which the respondent reported his/her 48+ cognition data. Note: the 48+ Cognition Module contains data from a cognition battery administered to respondents by cohort during the survey year in which they would turn at least 48. Most of these data items are actual survey data collected directly from the respondent. They have been compiled into a single set of XRND variables.

48+ Cognition Module

Beginning in 2006, the survey included a battery of exercises designed to capture cognitive capabilities. Similar to the 50-and-over Health Module, the Cognition Module was administered to two birth-year cohorts in the survey year during which they would turn at least age 48. In 2006, the module was administered to respondents born in 1957-1958; in 2008, the module was administered to those born in 1959-1960 and age-eligible respondents who skipped the 2006 interview, and so on.

Respondents were first asked for their own assessment of the current quality of their memory. They were then given a word recall exercise using four randomly assigned sets of 10 words. The numbers of correctly and incorrectly recalled words were recorded. Respondents were next asked to count backwards from 20, then from 86. Following this, they were given the starting point of 100 and asked to subtract 7; the process was continued five times (e.g., until the final subtraction answer should have been 65). Finally, respondents were asked to recall the same list of 10 words that they were given at the beginning of the cognition battery.

The vast majority of respondents completed the Cognition Module by the 2012 interview. A relatively small but not insignificant number of respondents, who missed the interview at their first eligible year for the Cognition Module and missed multiple interviews after that, took the battery in the 2014 or 2016 interview.

The 48+ cognition data from round 22 through round 27 (2006-2016) has been compiled into a single set of variables. Variable names for this set of items begin with "COGNITION" and are contained in the COGNITION area of interest. These items are assigned to the XRND survey year and do not identify non-interviewed cases for specific survey years. The variable COGNITION_SOURCEYR (Reference #X00311.00) contains the survey year in which each respondent's data was collected.

The full Cognition Module was not administered in the 2018 interview. However several questions related to cognition were included. Respondents were administered a question to test verbal fluency in which respondents were asked to name as many animals as they could in 60 seconds (COGNITION-C5). In addition, respondents were again asked to rate their memory and assess whether it was better, the same or worse over the last two years.

In the 2020 interview, the entire Cognition Module as originally administered to respondents as they turned 48 years old, was administered again to the entire sample. These repeated measures in 2020 when respondents were aged 55-64, offer a point of comparison to the baseline collected as respondents turned 48 years old. It should be noted that the second count-back series (question names COGNITION-6G through COGNITION-6N) was administered to roughly two-thirds of the sample, due to questionnaire timing.

Important information: 2008 missing data

Users should note that a questionnaire malfunction in survey year 2008 caused all respondents to be skipped around the second set of Word Recall questions. Respondents who were inadvertently not administered those questions can be identified by using the COGNITION_SOURCEYR variable in the COGNITION area of interest.

HRS cognition questions

The 2020 survey also contained an additional set of cognition questions from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) assessing awareness of current basic facts and word definitions. Respondents were asked for the full date and day of the week, names of the president and vice president, and words for two simple definitions (scissors and cactus).

The general correspondence of the NLSY79 survey questions to the original HRS cognition test sections is as follows:

  1. HRS: Self-rated Memory (present); NLSY79: COGNITION-C1
  2. HRS: Self-rated memory (compared to past); NLSY79: COGNITION-C2
  3. HRS: Immediate Word Recall; NLSY79: COGNITION-3_TEST1 through COGNITION-4_CHK4~000004
  4. HRS: Delayed word recall: NLSY79: COGNITION-8_CHK through COGNITION-8G_4
  5. HRS: Serial 7’s test; NLSY79: COGNITION-7A through COGNITION-7E
  6. HRS: Backwards counting starting from 20; NLSY79: COGNITION-6 through COGNITION-6F
  7. HRS: Backwards counting starting from 86: NLSY79: COGNITION-6G through COGNITION-6N
  8. HRS: Date naming; NLSY79: COGNITION-HRS-D151 through COGNITION-HRS-D154
  9. HRS: Object naming; NLSY79: COGNITION-HRS-D155, COGNITION-HRS-D156
  10. HRS: President/Vice president naming; NLSY79: COGNITION-HRS-D157 through COGNITION-HRS-D158

See Documentation of Cognitive Functioning Measures in the Health and Retirement Study (PDF) for further information on HRS corresponding content.

Survey Instruments Cognition questions are located within the "Health" section of each questionnaire (2006-2020).
Area of Interest Cognition