It's Not Memory Loss - Older Minds May Just Be Fuller of Information 206
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: "Benedict Carey writes in the NYT that the idea that the brain slows with age is one of the strongest in all of psychology. But a new paper suggests that older adults' performance on cognitive tests reflects the predictable consequences of learning on information-processing, and not cognitive decline. A team of linguistic researchers from the University of Tübingen in Germany used advanced learning models to search enormous databases of words and phrases. Since educated older people generally know more words than younger people, simply by virtue of having been around longer, the experiment simulates what an older brain has to do to retrieve a word. When the researchers incorporated that difference into the models, the aging 'deficits' largely disappeared. That is to say, the larger the library you have in your head, the longer it usually takes to find a particular word (or pair). 'What shocked me, to be honest, is that for the first half of the time we were doing this project, I totally bought into the idea of age-related cognitive decline in healthy adults,' says lead author Michael Ramscar but the simulations 'fit so well to human data that it slowly forced me to entertain this idea that I didn't need to invoke decline at all.' The new report will very likely add to a growing skepticism about how steep age-related decline really is. Scientists who study thinking and memory often make a broad distinction between 'fluid' and 'crystallized' intelligence. The former includes short-term memory, like holding a phone number in mind, analytical reasoning, and the ability to tune out distractions, like ambient conversation. The latter is accumulated knowledge, vocabulary and expertise. 'In essence, what Ramscar's group is arguing is that an increase in crystallized intelligence can account for a decrease in fluid intelligence,' says Zach Hambrick, In the meantime the new digital-era challenge to 'cognitive decline' can serve as a ready-made explanation for blank moments, whether senior or otherwise (PDF). 'It's not that you're slow,' says Carey. 'It's that you know so much.'"
what's "interesting"? (Score:2)
What *I* find "interesting" is that even though old grandparents have always been saying things like "It's not that grandma's getting stupid, sweetie, it's just that when you're my age you know so much that it takes awhile to remember what you know", none of that matters if the newest generation hasn't climbed out of their dungeons to announce that they simulated the same thing on a computer. Relevance, anyone? Reverence, maybe?
Re:what's "interesting"? (Score:5, Funny)
There's a word for people like you. I can't quite recall what it is at the moment, but I know there is a word for people like you.
Re:what's "interesting"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't worry, it will come to you tomorrow morning.
I've been known to blurt out answers to three day old questions, and have my geezer friends nod in agreement as if no time had passed.
Its hard to dig up a single nugget from under under that pile of tailings I've accumulated over the years.
Re:what's "interesting"? (Score:5, Funny)
Its hard to dig up a single nugget from under under that pile of tailings I've accumulated over the years.
It's okay; you can blurt it out in three or so days when the article is re-posted.
Re:what's "interesting"? (Score:4, Interesting)
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I also noticed that wandering about is (in my case) more of a character trait, than age related thing. I was mind wandering much more, when I was young. It took years till I learned, that I do and few more to learn how to control that. Learning that I do wander about was a tough part but few 'friends' were very helpful in teasing me i
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Wait a minute!
You may be on to something with that.
Maybe this explains all the dupes on /.
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There's a word for people like you. I can't quite recall what it is at the moment, but I know there is a word for people like you.
That's ok I'll ask the nurse :)
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"I used to know all that stuff!"
--From Goldie, around, uh, 1965? On, uh.... was it the Smothers Brothers? Or that other show? Maybe it wasn' Goldie...
C'mon fellow geezers, help me out here!
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Don't mind. One day the GP will be able to model humor on a computer, and then he'll understand.
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I've always used it as an excuse that my brain was full, now it seems I was right.
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Does this also mean that if you sleep less, you become older fast?
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Well, there comes a point when too little sleep definitely makes you feel older faster...
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Science does not take anecdotes. Someone has to be interested enough to do the simulation, have funding to support it, and time in the schedule.
And, this is only a suggestion that decline can be uninvolved, not that it is.
Put simply, your surprise is rooted in not understanding how science works, or perhaps forgetting momentarily.
Old people know lots of true things and lots of untrue things, and we don't have researchers lining up to see which ones are which. A few yes, but not enough.
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The problem with worshiping Science as a religion is that we spent several thousand years learning core technologies like, oh, handling fire, talking and writing, building boats that could sail thousands of miles. All of it before there was science.
It is quite clear to anyone with an unfettered mind that there is an awful lot that can be learned that does not fit the scientific paradigm. Try using the whole of your brain, and not just that fraction that handles "scientific" abstractions.
Re:what's "interesting"? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't worship science as a religion. I reserve worship for God. I do look to science as the best method we've devised to obtain solid, useful explanations of observable phenomena. While we certainly did develop and use many technologies prior to discovering the scientific method of inquiry, contrast the effectiveness and pace of progress before and after the enlightenment to see that science makes our knowledge dramatically more effective and impactful.
As for using the whole of my brain, not just the "scientific" part, that statement doesn't even make any sense. The whole of my brain encompasses all sorts of functions, most of which contribute to scientific reasoning -- including, in particular, all of the so-called "creative" elements, since creativity is a core part of the scientific method; some of which have no relevance to or even detract from scientific reasoning but enrich personal experience; and some of which are purely involved with survival processes. It's impossible not to use one's whole brain.
Pretty much sums it up well. (Score:5, Interesting)
And that's my experience - too many names to keep track of, too much information inflow to filter makes me forget names of people even though I recognize their faces.
The big problem with age is that your mind gets filled up with information, and it's hard to intentionally forget stuff. Sometimes it's easier to remember old stuff than new. If there only was a way to forget some bad old stuff to make room for new...
One way to improve the situation is to lower the time spent watching TV since that's a giant information feed. And lack of sleep impacts the memory capacity too.
Also realize that the human brain has evolved to be an information store and an association processor to pick out a good solution for a problem based on what seems to be insufficient data. This is of course not always a blessing - it's a curse too, and that's what causes the balance between a genius and a mad man. I would like to extend the quote by Arthur Schopenhauer: "Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see." to also add "A mad man sees a target that isn't there."
Re:Pretty much sums it up well. (Score:5, Funny)
Homer:Marge, every time I learn something new it pushes something old out of my brain, Remember that time I learned how to make wine and forgot how to drive?
Marge:Thats because you were drunk.
Homer:And how
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The big problem with age is that your mind gets filled up with information, and it's hard to intentionally forget stuff.
Vodka.
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One way to improve the situation is to lower the time spent watching TV since that's a giant information feed.
Depends on what you're watching....
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makes me forget names of people even though I recognize their faces
I do the same thing constantly, forgetting people's names despite the fact that I not only remember their faces, but their voices, past interactions I've had with them, and sometimes half their life story. You could chalk it up to my age, but I used to do the same thing in my 20's.
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I do the same thing constantly, forgetting people's names despite the fact that I not only remember their faces, but their voices, past interactions I've had with them, and sometimes half their life story. You could chalk it up to my age, but I used to do the same thing in my 20's.
Me too! I remember when I was waiting for the bus, and a guy I went to college with walked by. I knew who he was, but was totally blanking on his name. We talked awhile, he left, and 5 minutes later, "Scott" popped into my head.
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Me too! I remember when I was waiting for the bus, and a guy I went to college with walked by. I knew who he was, but was totally blanking on his name. We talked awhile, he left, and 5 minutes later, "Scott" popped into my head.
And then what? Did you finally remember the guy's name?
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Worst case:
The phone rings. You answer. You are asked "To whom am I speaking?" - You draw a blank.
Re:Pretty much sums it up well. (Score:4, Insightful)
I learned some time ago to not bother with learning anything I can look up when I need it. So now I'm dependent on a bunch of brain prosthetics: shopping lists, todo lists, calendars with notes. The biggest one of all being Google.
Now I'm more concerned with remembering how to rediscover that nugget I once knew than in trying to remember the nugget itself. If I can't get to Google, I sometimes look slow and dense in conversations with kids less than 40 years old. But so long as I've got one of my Android gadgets in reach (and charged up), I'm one of the brighter bulbs in the tool shed.
Uh, wait a minute,.. what did I just say...
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Shit, I really need to stop reading the internets and start meditating or something. Do I really need to fill my memory with super bowl advertisements and the latest NSA leak?
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So can I sue my college? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So can I sue my college? (Score:5, Insightful)
As an old English/Philosophy major who really loves Victorian-era literature, I reflect your resentment. What you choose to do with this reflected image is yet another reflection. I had to have science credits, took Biology classes and have benefitted both directly and indirectly ever since. Perhaps it's an attitudinal thing?
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I don't see what elevation could possibly have to do with it.
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No, that's altitude. Attitude is your orientation.
Re:So can I sue my college? (Score:5, Insightful)
As an old English/Philosophy major who really loves Victorian-era literature, I reflect your resentment. What you choose to do with this reflected image is yet another reflection. I had to have science credits, took Biology classes and have benefitted both directly and indirectly ever since. Perhaps it's an attitudinal thing?
No, it's obvious that taking science classes is beneficial to everyone. It's just the Victorian-era literature that's useless for most things.
Funny because its true (Score:4, Funny)
How I wish I had mod points today, although not sure if I'd mod it funny or insightful ;)
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I suppose if bits and bytes are more important to you than people that makes a lot of sense. Classic literature is classic because it's timeless in a way. People go through the same situations as their ancestors, run into the same kinds of societal limitations and attitudes.
Every one of our lives is like part of a giant brute-force attempt to run things through every possible scenario with every temperament and mindset. So much of what we face is just a repeat of what everyone else has already gone through.
Re:So can I sue my college? (Score:4, Interesting)
For requiring me to take a course on Victorian-era English literature as part of my engineering degree graduation requirements? By forcing me to take the course, they literally filled my brain up with useless stuff which will accelerate the onset of age-related dementia.
No, that's not useless. If you were paying attention it may have forced you to learn some proper English. I'm not sure if the summary headline fits the article content completely. TFA seems to be trying to say (caveat. I'm not a psychologist and I only read TFA and parts of the paper) is something to the effect that for example: in the old days when there was no internet or the net was more limited than it is now, you had to solve your own problems and that stimulates your brain and 'trains' it. A person who has the internet at his/her disposal and solves most of their problems by hitting experts-exchange, stack overflow or some such web and benefits from hard thinking done by others does not have their brain stimulated in the same way because they don't have to remember this stuff and don't figure it out on their own. They can just book mark it whereas 20 years ago you 'd better write yourself a private howto once you solved your conundrum in case you ran into this again five years and that makes things concerning the problem it self stick a bit more than hitting [Ctrl]+[D]. If you just use search engines to search for solutions to problems the information retained probably has more (though not exclusively) to do with how to find the solution than how to figure the problem out by yourself. Basically if you are hit by tough problems when you are younger and forced solve them yourself and to exercise your brain it means that when you get older it takes you longer to remember things because you have to 'search a bigger database'. not because your brain is getting slower. Furthermore if your short term memory and analytic abilities decline with age you can make up for it with experience, expertise and 'brain training' received in your youth. Finally, as you age, you also gain the ability to notice subtle side effects of doing something as you get older that a younger person does not notice as a result of your brain being trained more and having more experience. Something like:
Younger person: If we connect this doohickey with that thingemabomb we get effect X.
Older person: Hmmmmm.....
Younger person: (impatiently annoyed) What!
Older person: Well, that's true but if somebody then presses button A while dohickey is in state Y the thingemabob will short out.
Younger person: (slightly embarrased) Oh, yeah right.
Re:So can I sue my college? (Score:5, Insightful)
For requiring me to take a course on Victorian-era English literature as part of my engineering degree graduation requirements? By forcing me to take the course, they literally filled my brain up with useless stuff which will accelerate the onset of age-related dementia.
As an engineering graduate of 1986, I joined a group of classmates a couple of years ago on a visit to the Dean, who asked us what we would change, looking back, in the curriculum. There were two answers common to all of us: project management and English writing. We are all in management now, not practical engineering, and need words more than we need numbers and formulae. An English writing course should be required for all pure and applied science majors, in my opinion.
And I think you should have paid more attention in your one class: literally doesn't mean what you think it does.
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No, that's because most dictionaries are descriptive rather than prescriptive: they're trying to help people understand what someone might be saying, not trying to tell you what the right answer is. And in general, I agree with them -- language is defined by its speakers and develops over time.
But the fact is that using "l
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Indeed: if you look at m-w or any other dictionary then you may notice that the modern use have two opposite meanings. That belongs to the richness and sophistication of modern language.
No, it speaks to a word that has literally lost all useful meaning.
I'll leave it to you to figure out what I meant by that.
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English teaches fad and fashion.
If English is so useless, why are you writing in it?
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Oh yes it literally does... [oxforddictionaries.com]
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Only in the sense that any group of people can force a word to mean something new if they use it wrong long enough. There is no central authority for the English language, so majority rules. It's just a shame when a word's new meaning is because people have been using it wrong for so long.
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" There were two answers common to all of us: project management and English writing. We are all in management now, not practical engineering, and need words more than we need numbers and formulae"
Seriously? If you're a graduate who couldn't write properly then shame on you. As for a project management section - what a waste of time. For a start not everyone wants to go into management - I didn't out of choice as even the thought of it depresses me - and secondly engineering course should be about engineeri
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I represented computer science at an elementary-school tech fair a few months ago. Many of the students had been given papers they were supposed to fill out by asking us questions; one of the questions was, "How oft
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And I think you should have paid more attention in your one class: literally doesn't mean what you think it does.
Yes it does, his brain is so small it was completely filled by the literature course, leaving no room for the ability to type insightful comments to /.
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The rule of thumb in any Literature, Philosophy or Poly Sci class - figure out what the prof wants to hear, then tell them that.
The vast majority of the idiot profs in these courses are the middle aged people on campus who are around adolescents constantly and sometimes visibly preen when said adolescents 'admire their work' or any other endless examples of campus ass-kissing. You just tell these primma-donnas what they want to hear so you pass the course, graduate the fuck out, join the world of adults and start creating/doing things that matter.
Then again, you might also participate in the course, discover that it is actually a PoliSci class, and who knows, maybe even literally learn to spell prima donna.
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They're not talking about dementia. The kind of "senior moments" they're talking about may seem similar, but it's a different thing. There are studies that show that if you keep learning, it helps *stave off* dementia. Slow, but sure.
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Ah, so they attempted to prevent you from turning into the unidimensional being you've become, shame on them. What do people do for fun in your dimension?
foremost... (Score:2)
Twenty questions (Score:5, Interesting)
Jeff Hawkins [wikipedia.org] pointed out that the game "twenty questions" is popular and significant. In twenty yes/no questions you can identify one million objects or concepts (2^20 = 1024*1024).
He conjectured that the reason the game isn't "twenty five questions" or any other number is that the data capacity of the human brain is about this much. By the anthropic principle, we use twenty questions because a game with any other number would be too easy or hard.
(Perhaps the game is interesting because our brains hold 2 million concepts, giving the game a 50% chance of success. While arguable, this is still predicts a range of "about a million" concepts for the fully loaded brain.)
This number (and the conjecture) has stuck with me. The idea that you can build a culturally literate [wikipedia.org] mind - with the ability to understand a political speech, read a newspaper article, apply for a job - would take an understanding of only about a million concepts.
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By the anthropic principle
I don't think that means what you think it means.
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He conjectured that the reason the game isn't "twenty five questions" or any other number is that the data capacity of the human brain is about this much
Huh? Haven't you ever continued the game until the person won? In the car as kids we'd regularly get into the mid-30's with unique questions.
Perhaps I miss your point.
Sherlock Holmes quote (Score:2, Interesting)
I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it.
when I was a kid (Score:2)
When I was a kid I snapped out fast answers and interrupted everyone because I knew I was right.
I'm coming close to being half a century old, and yes, I do stop and try to dumb things down for my nephews.
My parents were dumb when I was a kid, and now they show me how i might of been a bit less smarter than I thought I was. With age comes wisdom.
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My parents were dumb when I was a kid, and now they show me how i might of been a bit less smarter than I thought I was. With age comes wisdom.
Reminds me of an old Rabbinic saying: Wisdom comes to us when we are too old to use it.
Today, really? (Score:2)
Obligate fish story... (Score:3)
A story is told about ichthyologist David Scott Jordan. Jordan and a colleague were walking across campus one day when a student asked Dr. Jordan a question, which, upon answering, Jordan asked the student's name. Jordan's colleague asked him why he didn't remember his student's names. Jordan replied, "Every time I remember the name of a student, I forget the name of a fish!"
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Obligate fish story...
Wrong but right.
This story is true but.... (Score:4, Funny)
... as I get older I find that I get wiser. But it also fills up with useless information. The next time someone says to me, "You're full of shit," they may be accurate for a change.
It's not a fact, it's a correlation (Score:2)
Note that it is not a fact. It's only that some activation model that is sensitive to the number of items in word memory is compatible with slowing down with age. That's interesting, but the paper does not present a working model of human lexical memory, as it basically selects words based on trigrams and some mysterious weight parameter. This does not seem to be compatible with the literature on priming, interference, or multilingualism without heavy modification (which will undoubtedly change the outcome
Also complexity (Score:2)
Grade school student - because it is.
High school student - dust.
Undergraduate - Rayleigh scattering
Postgraduate - an answer that spans a few dozen pages.
Oblig. Grampa Simpson (Score:4, Funny)
Scrabble in native vs foreign language (Score:5, Interesting)
Both in my native language (Estonian) and in English.
I am much much MUCH faster in English Scrabble than in Estonian one. I believe the reason to be the same. Picking a word from my limited English vocab is fast. Working through all resources of my native language takes time.
As a result, I can beat most native English speakers in a timed game simply because of my speed, whereas my native Scrabble skills are mediocre at best.
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"my native Scrabble skills are mediocre at best."
So how do your Estonian scrabble opponents beat you, then?
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By playing him in timed games.
Time to Defrag (Score:2)
Human OS (Score:2)
The (Score:2)
In the future (Score:2)
We'll take amnesia pills every 5-6 decades or so.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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You know that that idea dates back to Plato, right? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P... [wikipedia.org]
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Well, I'm 68 and I got it all down. Just don't know where the hell I put it. :/
I Love This Discussion (Score:3)
I love to read the little young snerts sounding so clever in their cock-sure certainty that in their Peter Pan worlds they can ridicule and mock those of greater age with impunity.
Guess what, snotty? You are nothing but a geezer in training, awaiting your inevitable turn. The only escape? Premature death.
How's that aging thing working for ya?
Big O of the brain (Score:2)
So from the data collected they should be able to calculate the big-O order of growth of the brain when it searches for words?
Chalk board moment (Score:2)
Is it just me, or did that topic title make you cringe? So I guess my mind treats information like a fuller treats wool?
Here is an article about fullers:
Wool industry [uakron.edu]
Also, things cannot be 'fuller' than full. Things are full or they are not. And even then, it would be 'more full' not fuller.
The Real Reason (Score:2)
The real reason you don't remember as many new things as you get older, is that you realize just how useless most of the stuff you already remember is.
Gary Larson was right (Score:3)
Hawkins - On Intelligence (Score:2)
"Think about information flowing from your eyes, ears, and skin into the neocortex. Each region of the neocortex tries to understand what this information means. Each region tries to understand the input in terms of the sequences it knows. If it does understand the input, it says, "I understand this, it is just part of the object I am already seeing. I won't pass on the details." If a
Seen it, doing it. (Score:2)
|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|
Each year gets condensed into an even smaller space as you get older - the longer you live, the more the brain condenses the information - and it is not stupid, it only saves the 'memorable' stuff such as the first time you had sex, got drunk, broke a leg etc.
So by the time you are fifty, you have 50 years crammed in that small space - and a lot of i
Young Minds with Lots of Knowledge (Score:2)
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Nah, just need to keep notes on where you put things.
Have the location of the notes tattooed on your left wrist.
Have the words ”other wrist ” tattooed on your right wrist.
Re:Holmes (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Holmes (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Holmes (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not about the storage, it's all about the index lookup speeds.
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It's startling what we can remember, and how much gets jammed into our brains day after day, month after month, year after year, not just knowledge, but trivial day to day events.. but yeah, eventually that build up has to have some repercussions.
Example of memory: just yesterday, I got my eBay purchase of SNES "Donkey Kong Country" for my son; now, I hadn't played it since 1995 (I sold all my consol
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I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.
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Except that Holmes was almost certainly twitting Watson with that. Watson had been trying to measure Holmes' areas of knowledge, and Holmes presumably was aware. In the later stories, Holmes exhibits a wide array of knowledge, such that Ballarat was in Australia, or the significance of the spelling "plow" in conjunction with a mention of artesian wells.
Re:Flawed model (Score:5, Insightful)
I accept there is a correlation between test results and perceived IQ, but since the very definition of intelligence is already controversial (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence#Definitions) and tests are probably applied most of the time to measure younger people (career planning etc.), and also the time spent on a single test is very limited, it seems quite conceivable to me that some people might be good at solving more complex real live (common sense: display higher intelligence) while they suck at short tasks. From personal experience (older colleagues) I'd say there is a bias towards this type of people in older people.
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Whoah, careful there! Modern academia doesn't allow researchers to admit such ideas as "IQ" even exist anymore.
Despite the fact that you have a near perfect correlation between "big number = scary-smary" and "small number = catches flies with open mouth", instead we have to consider nuances... Like how your brain surgeon might not do well on formal tests, but since he stayed inside the l
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While I agree with you in general, Richard Feynman scored in the 120s on IQ tests. I score in the 160s. I am nowhere near as smart in any practical sense as Feynman was.
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They forgot to add to their model known degradation
In other words they took a fresh look at it, rather than designing the studies so that they simply confirmed already known "facts". What kind of a way is that to do science? Next thing you know they'll be using some cockamamie notion of quantized EM energy to explain black body radiation, when we already know that's not the way it works.
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basic IQ can be measured.
And it is subject to the Flynn effect [wikipedia.org]. So saying "It can be measured" hardly invalidates the idea that a better model of intelligence for aged brains will incorporate the various other things that are affecting the measurement.
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Actually this research shows why age discrimination should be illegal, and the laws against it should actually be enforced. Therefore fwd.us will be spending lots of money to refute this research.
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The brain functions as a large associated mesh. The more memories you have ...
In other words, you're proud of your ignorance.
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I think you need a defrag...
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I was fairly certain this was called sleep.