May 20, 2008
Older Brain Really May Be a Wiser Brain
From The New York Times:
When older people can no longer remember names at a cocktail party, they tend to think that their brainpower is declining. But a growing number of studies suggest that this assumption is often wrong. Instead, the research finds, the aging brain is simply taking in more data and trying to sift through a clutter of information, often to its long-term benefit. The studies are analyzed in a new edition of a neurology book, “Progress in Brain Research.” Some brains do deteriorate with age. Alzheimer's disease, for example, strikes 13 percent of Americans 65 and older. But for most aging adults, the authors say, much of what occurs is a gradually widening focus of attention that makes it more difficult to latch onto just one fact, like a name or a telephone number. Although that can be frustrating, it is often useful.
“It may be that distractibility is not, in fact, a bad thing,” said Shelley H. Carson, a psychology researcher at Harvard whose work was cited in the book. “It may increase the amount of information available to the conscious mind.” For example, in studies where subjects are asked to read passages that are interrupted with unexpected words or phrases, adults 60 and older work much more slowly than college students. Although the students plow through the texts at a consistent speed regardless of what the out-of-place words mean, older people slow down even more when the words are related to the topic at hand. That indicates that they are not just stumbling over the extra information, but are taking it in and processing it.
More here.
Posted by Azra Raza at 05:14 AM | Permalink






Comments
Whew!
Thanks, I needed that!
I feel much better now.
Posted by: John Ballard | May 20, 2008 8:20:15 AM
Nice...if it's true. A colleague of mine once summed up this business of the aging mind as,"It's not that I forget more. There's just more to remember."
Posted by: Pete Chapman | May 20, 2008 8:55:48 AM
Perhaps this is particular to my own gray matter, but at the tender age of twenty-three I occasionally find myself forgetting names at parties.
I wonder, then, if failing to remember a name or a phone number happens to most adult humans regardless of age, but the elderly are simply more concerned about senility and thus are more apt to take notice of their own failure to remember.
Let's say that a twenty two year old briefly forgets the name of someone they knew in high school when they see them at a five year reunion. The twenty two year old doesn't give it a second thought aside from some minor embarrasment and goes back to the open bar.
The same thing happens to a fifty-five year old at a later reunion, and suddenly, he starts worrying about Alzheimers, senility, etc.
The only difference is that the fifty five year old statistically has more reason to be concerned about memory-related illnesses. This is despite the fact that the failure to recall someone's name that you knew 30 years ago in high school is not really a warning sign of senility or Alzheimers etc.
Posted by: C M R | May 20, 2008 9:57:10 AM
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