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Aging and cognitive abilities
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Aging is a natural process, and
with it come changes in memory. Most people associate
aging with declines in cognitive performance. My mom will say she's
having a senior moment when she forgets something,
for example. But never fear. Not all cognitive changes
in adulthood are negative. Some abilities remain relatively
stable and some even improve. So let's start with a positive,
abilities that remain stable. First of all, implicit
memory stays about the same across the lifespan. In other words,
once you've learned to ride a bike that
procedural memory is likely to stay with
you as you age, barring any brain
damage or disease. Recognition memory also stays
relatively stable over time, meaning that once you learned
something your ability to pick it out of a list
later remains about the same whether you're 27 or 67. Now for abilities that improve. Semantic memory improves
until around age 60 and only then starts declining. This means that older adults
still have good verbal skills and why they make excellent
crossword puzzle buddies. A related area in
which older adults tend to score better
than younger adults is crystallized intelligence,
which involves the ability to use knowledge and experience. Since older adults
have had more time to gain knowledge
and experience, this pattern make sense. And crystallized
intelligence is often tested with reading
comprehension and analogy tests, so older adults
tend to be better at those than younger adults. Finally, older adults tend
to be better at reasoning in the face of interpersonal or
emotionally-charged problems. Again, the theory is that
with their greater experience and knowledge of these
types of situations, they are more
likely to have been through some similar
situation and be able to draw from
that experience. Of course, there are
some cognitive abilities that decline as we age. Recall becomes more difficult. Although recognition
is stable, it's harder for older adults
than younger adults to generate responses
without cues, like there are in a free recall
or sometimes cued recall task. Similarly, episodic
memory is impaired. Often memories formed
a long time ago will be relatively stable, but
forming new episodic memories becomes more
difficult as we age. Processing speed
slows down as we age, So if you're watching
jeopardy with Grandma, she might know just as many
answers as you do, if not more, but she'll have a
harder time outputting the response within such
a short period of time. Related to processing
speed, divided attention becomes more difficult. As we age it becomes
increasingly harder to effectively switch our
attention between tasks, so we become more
easily distracted. The bottom line is that
cognitive changes in adulthood aren't all negative. Although some cognitive
abilities do decline, it's important to remember
that in healthy older adults some cognitive abilities will
remain stable or even improve.