#### **Aging and Models of Cognitive Ability: Exploratory and Confirmatory Analyses of Hungarian WAIS-IV Data** #### (Goring, Schmank, & Conway, 2020) --- The positive manifold is one of the most frequently replicated findings in cognitive psychology and has often been explored using factor analysis (Spearman, 1904; Conway & Kovacs, 2013). Well-known models of cognition are typically organized such that manifest variables load onto respective latent factors representing specific cognitive abilities, and some posit a higher-order factor of general ability, *g*. It has been well established the cognitive abilities change across the lifespan (Craik & Salthouse, 2011), yet there is less work examining how latent models of cognitive ability compare across different age groups. The current project used data from the Hungarian-Weschler Adult Intelligence Scale-fourth edition (H-WAISIV; Weschler; 2008) to compare models of cognitive ability for both young (18-40 years) and older adults (65 + years). An exploratory factor analysis conducted on the young adult data (n = 457) produced a fourfactor model that explained 67% of the variance in the data. This factor structure was then used to conduct a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on the older adult data (n = 305). The CFA produced good fit to the data, that was not significantly improved upon by adding a higher-order factor. Finally, in line with recent criticisms of using latent variable modeling (see Borsboom, Mellenbergh, & van Heerden, 2003) an exploratory psychometric network analysis was conducted on young adult data and confirmatory psychometric network analysis techniques were then applied to the older adult data, which produced similar, well-fitting results. ###### Abstract Accepted for presentation at the 2020 Cognitive Aging Conference* (Scheduled presentation date: April 18, 2020 1:00 - 300 PM) ###### *Postponed as of March 15, 2020 due to COVID-19 pandemic