Schedule and Presentations 2019
The theme of the 2019 conference will be “Harmonization: Linking and Equating Cognitive Tests”. Harmonization refers to all procedures designed to make different measures comparable, and includes non-statistical and statistical activities. For example, over 500 cognitive tests have been developed, of which about 80 distinct measures are typically used in research studies on cognitive aging. The result is a body of literature based on heterogeneous tests that is difficult to integrate and synthesize to arrive at sound inferences. This conference will include lectures that will provide a foundation for workgroups that will perform analyses on existing datasets to demonstrate the performance, limits, and requirements of harmonization activities, with an emphasis on methods making use of modern psychometric methods (e.g., item response theory) but also including other approaches. There is no prerequisite knowledge or expertise needed in psychometrics, item response theory, or latent variable methods needed to participate in the conference. As in previous years, conference activities prioritize to efforts of workgroups that will engage in collaborative science to generate publications that advance the field of cognitive aging and foster the development of multidisciplinary networks of researchers.