rons and the rescue and repair of neural networks; and assessing the efficacy of intervention strategies.

Current research indicates that aging impairs cognition in some tasks but spares it in others. Until recently, the impairments were thought impossible to prevent or change. However, growing bodies of evidence show that the most impressive feature of the human mind across the life span may be its adaptability. Life experience can bring about lasting changes in the brain that shape the aging mind. In other words, biology and culture codetermine cognitive structure and functioning. Individuals adapt, sometimes with great success, so as to maintain cognitive functioning and task performance in the face of changes in the brain and in their social contexts. Systematically different life experiences yield systematically different cognitive contents and processes. And technology can modify the context of cognition to greatly improve functioning for older people. Much can be learned from increased research attention to the aging mind in its context: to factors such as cultural expectations and differences, changes in living situations and motives in late life, and emerging technologies. A new research initiative on cognition in context would seek to understand such factors and to identify ways to maintain and improve cognitive functioning of older people, taking these factors into account. Research under the initiative would pursue three major goals: understanding adaptive processes that affect cognitive functioning and performance during aging; understanding how differences in sociocultural context bring about systematic variation in cognitive functioning and performance; and developing the knowledge needed to design effective technologies, based on advances in the technology of sensing and information processing, to support adaptivity in older people.

As already noted, research has established that aging affects cognitive functioning and performance of life tasks differently depending on the cogni-