Information Processing Speed (IPS): Is it Important to Disability and Neurological Rehabilitation?

Although assessing Information Processing Speed (IPS) has been long regarded to be important for general cognitive evaluation, and thus treating IPS as if a monolithic entity, detailed evaluation of IPS tasks indicate numerous neurological steps contribute to its measure. Consequently, IPS is not a monolith, and measuring IPS per se may obscure highly important processes that need improved understanding, to eventually benefit neurological rehabilitation. Moreover, it is unclear whether it is better to target rehabilitation for low IPS vs. other behavioral processes to benefit real-world self-care. This symposium will review the neurological processes that may drive IPS and preliminary outcomes from a specific therapy that combines speed of processing training with a package of behavioral medicine techniques to transfer gains from the lab to self-care in the real-world setting. The symposium thus will critically discuss whether IPS per se is vital toward understanding and treating cognitive disability.