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Medicine Science

Your Brain Doesn't Slow Down Until Your 60s (newscientist.com) 98

Posted by BeauHD from the later-than-previously-thought dept.
Our ability to process information during decision-making doesn't drop off until age 60, according to new findings that challenge the widespread belief that mental speed starts to decline in our 20s. New Scientist reports: Mischa von Krause at Heidelberg University in Germany and his colleagues analysed data collected from around 1.2 million people aged 10 to 80 who took part in an experiment that was originally designed to measure implicit racial bias. During the task, participants were asked to sort words and images, for example by labelling faces as white or Black, or classifying words such as "joy" or "agony" as good or bad, by pressing one of two buttons. In support of previous studies, the researchers found that people's reaction times speed up from their teens to around age 20, then slow down as they get older. This decline has typically been attributed to slower mental speed, but this isn't the case, says von Krause.

The team used an established model of cognition based on previous research, which assumes people make decisions by continuously considering information until they reach a threshold of certainty. According to this model, the decrease in reaction time from age 20 is probably due to people wanting more certainty before making decisions as they age, visual information taking more time to travel from their eyes to their brain and people taking longer to physically hit the button as they get older. The analysis suggests that people's mental speed increases in their 20s, and stays high until age 60. [...] While the team expects the results will apply to a wide range of cognitive tasks, it is possible that age may affect other tasks differently, such as those relying on memory. The study has been published in the journal Nature Human Behavior.
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Your Brain Doesn't Slow Down Until Your 60s More

Your Brain Doesn't Slow Down Until Your 60s

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  • I didn't think Slashdot was that old (Score:5, Funny)

    by Flownez ( 589611 ) on Saturday February 19, 2022 @06:15AM (#62282887)
    But they're repeating stories more than my grandpa after half a bottle of scotch

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by JanSand ( 5746424 )
      At my age of 96 it seems my basic problem is not that I am slowing down but that the world is speeding up to a velocity that no one can handle the pace.

      • Seriously? No way that 96 year olds are on slashdot

        • I was born in Manhattan on February 2 1926 and grew up on Narrows Avenue in Brooklyn, moved to Manhattan in 1938 and lived in the oldest apartment house in the city at 142 East 18 Street. I attended Stuyvesant High School and a bit of CCNY before joining the US Army Air Corps in 1944 and was trained as a radar technician at Boca Raton, Florida, I have lived in Paris, France, West Berlin, Germany, Tel Aviv, Israel, and now Helsinki, Finland. I turned 96 earlier this month and have a blog at https://jansandhe [wordpress.com]
        • My one reply merely indicated that a generality can easily be invalidated by reality. Having turned 96 this February, if my brain has been deteriorating for 36 years I have never appreciated what it had been when I was a youngster of 60. But anyway, with my current relatively inferior nervous system, the rampantly vicious exhibition of the greater powers of civilization now expending much of its powers and gifts towards extinction of much if life on the planet, including humanity, demonstrates that one does

    • Apparently Slashdot becomes elderly long before 60. It's both forgetful (dupes!) and incontinent (shitting crypto stories all over the front page.)

    • originally designed to measure implicit racial bias

      Firstly, the implicit association test [wikipedia.org] does not measure racial bias, and can't be used for that purpose. There's a lot of people who *say* that it can measure this, or that it *should* measure this, but so far there's been no strong evidence of this.

      Quoth WIkipedia: ...a lack of empirical research justifying the diagnostic statements that are given to the lay public.

      Secondly, note that the researchers looked at data and came up with an hypotheses "ex post facto".

      Feynman has a good anecdote for this, where a

      • The big complaint about neural networks is that they will give an answer, but we have no idea how they arrived at the answer.

        It's often not true, neural networks are just approximating the solution to an equation using a gradient descent technique. If you have understanding of the equation you are trying to solve, then you can understand how they arrived at the answer.

        The difficulty is when you have an equation with thousands or 10s of thousands of variables. Figuring out which variable is significant in that case is difficult, but often still doable. Also worth mentioning that a lot of research in the last ~5 years has focused o

      • To the Ex post facto case, the is no reason a research cannot gather data and reach a hypothesis after the fact. Many innovative technologies and discoveries have occurred by happy accidents I a laboratory environment. The problem comes when the hypothesis formed is treated as an indisputable scienrific law without further, independent testing to replicate the initial research or the hypothesis becomes part on an establishment narrative protected from further criticism or scrutiny by political, religious

      • Wow ! I remember those are the type of comments that had gotten me hooked to slashdot decades back.

        It always seemed to have people who could calmly analyze any topic or problem on earth feom 1st principles and put you on the right path with out all the crazy stuff that goes on here nowadays.

        Or maybe I was just easy to impress then

  • Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)

    by GrumpySteen ( 1250194 ) on Saturday February 19, 2022 @06:17AM (#62282895)

    The average age of Members of the House at the beginning of the 117th Congress (the current one) was 58.4 years; of Senators, 64.3 years.

    I guess it's nice to know that our elected officials are in mental decline. It explains a few things.

    • Because marginal differences in the speed of sorting information is as good a proxy for making proper decisions on long term outcomes as any, right? I mean, if my repâ(TM)s performance at twitch games is declining, then just GTFO.

      JFCâ¦

    • You can have the smartest person in the world, but if they've never experienced much of life or dealing with other people they'd be as much use as the proverbial chocolate teapot. Also slowing down is not the same as becoming more stupid so unless the person in question needs to make split second life or death decisions such as a soldier on the ground it doesn't make a lot of difference.

      • Re:Don't ignore accumulated experience (Score:5, Insightful)

        by sg_oneill ( 159032 ) on Saturday February 19, 2022 @07:57AM (#62282989)

        The problem is, the lief those guys have experienced is basically a fucked up politicians life. All snaking around for donations, and lying through their teeth. Most of them havent worked a day of manual labour in their lives, or even clerical labour. I mean sure they've had 60 years of something. But have they lived like common people? Hell no.

        We have a political system that rewards used car salesmen and reality TV dropouts with ultimate power while public servants, they guys who ACTUALLY do the hard work of making a govenment tick , live off not much better than the average wage.

        We're doing this all wrong.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Viol8 ( 599362 )

          The US is not unique in that respect. Career politicians are everywhere here in europe too.

        • >We have a political system that rewards used car salesmen and reality TV dropouts with ultimate power while public servants, they guys who ACTUALLY do the hard work of making a govenment tick , live off not much better than the average wage.

          See Also: every place you've ever worked.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by trparky ( 846769 )

          This is why I've often said that we need our politicians to wear jackets like NASCAR drivers, that way we can see who and what paid for them. It's also why we need to do away with big money in politics so that even your average joe can run for the House or Senate. Only when we have the average person who knows how the average person on the street lives their lives is elected to high office will anything change.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dgatwood ( 11270 )

            This is why I've often said that we need our politicians to wear jackets like NASCAR drivers, that way we can see who and what paid for them. It's also why we need to do away with big money in politics so that even your average joe can run for the House or Senate. Only when we have the average person who knows how the average person on the street lives their lives is elected to high office will anything change.

            I'd rather see government by random selection. It's simple, and largely solves all of the problems that we have with government today. The first thing that happens is that each of the parties randomly chooses 20 people who are registered to vote in their primaries using a random number generator, eliminating anyone who is disqualified because of age. Those people are invited to become pre-primary candidates; new people are randomly picked to replace anyone who declines the invitation. The end result is

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Jzanu ( 668651 )
              I would prefer not to see simple avoidable mistakes made with the lives and livelihoods of millions of people. Making better choices requires expertise, training, education, and familiarity with the processes involved in implementing decisions so that the results are what is required. Amateur hour is OK in a night-club, not so much when it comes to deciding when war crimes justify declaring war against aggressors. Knowing what is involved in making ethical choices that still require death requires experienc

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by dgatwood ( 11270 )

                I would prefer not to see simple avoidable mistakes made with the lives and livelihoods of millions of people. Making better choices requires expertise, training, education, and familiarity with the processes involved in implementing decisions so that the results are what is required. Amateur hour is OK in a night-club, not so much when it comes to deciding when war crimes justify declaring war against aggressors. Knowing what is involved in making ethical choices that still require death requires experience.

                Okay, but bear in mind that almost no presidents ever have that experience, and term limits largely preclude it. Your choice is between someone who is a career politician and someone who isn't, not someone who has been a commander-in-chief and someone who isn't. That's why you have the Joint Chiefs guiding you.

                At best, having legislative experience means that you are better at knowing how the government works. Maybe — maybe — if you're lucky, you might have a better grip on how laws will affe

            • How would it be possible, between the sheer number of 20 candidates for every Federal, State, and Local office, to even view almost 3 1/2 hours of video for each and ever office? Besides just not being at all a "workable" solution, we can't even get a majority of eligible citizens to even take 10 minutes to push a button and vote.

        • The fact that "public servants" get more than the average wage is part of the problem. Government employment should be limited to those who are actually willing to sacrifice something to help their fellow man.

          We shouldn't be encouraging people who aren't actually producing something.

          • No I actually support a high wage. Nothing to do with them being the best for the job or anything, but because its designed to allow working class people to run for high office.

            The theory goes, at least historically the theory has been, that you want to discourage billionaires and aristocratic types from holding all the seats of power, but people on low incomes cant afford to campaign. So ideally what you do is you give each candidate a budget of a few hundred thousands maybe half a million, each to run the

      • .. as much use as the proverbial chocolate teapot ...

        I've never heard that metaphor. Granted I'm over 60 and into brain decay, but I would have remembered chocolate.

    • Re:Interesting (Score:4, Insightful)

      by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Saturday February 19, 2022 @07:59AM (#62282995)

      The average age of Members of the House at the beginning of the 117th Congress (the current one) was 58.4 years; of Senators, 64.3 years.

      I guess it's nice to know that our elected officials are in mental decline. It explains a few things.

      Yup. I'd say it explains a few things alright.

      About voters.

      And sadly, this won't explain why we will never see term limits, cognitive testing, or even congressional insider trading curtailed. Hell, I'd settle for regular sobriety checks at this point.

    • The average age of Members of the House at the beginning of the 117th Congress (the current one) was 58.4 years; of Senators, 64.3 years.

      This research is actually a cogent argument for age limits in congress.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by quenda ( 644621 )

      If you look at 20 year old videos of Trump, he seems way smarter. Joe Biden, well obviously past his prime.
      On the other hand, Bernie Sanders is 80 now, and still sharp as a tack.

      • On the other hand, Bernie Sanders is 80 now, and still sharp as a tack.

        Yes, he can still spout crap as readily as he did when he was young.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by quenda ( 644621 )

          On the other hand, Bernie Sanders is 80 now, and still sharp as a tack.

          Yes, he can still spout crap as readily as he did when he was young.

          Yeah, you're not really getting the spirit of this. We're trying not to be fanboi partisan hacks here.
          Bernie was not my choice either, but I can only dream of having his vitality now, let alone when I'm 80.

      • Joe Biden stays on script, and his speech impediment covers a lot of his failing cognition. It's difficult to assess how much brainpower he has left from his televised appearances.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by trparky ( 846769 )

          Calling a reporter a stupid son of a bitch just because he asked about the inflation issue isn't exactly a ringing endorsement of his cognitive faculties.

          • That "reporter" is actually a stupid son of a bitch and that is putting it nicely.
            Broader context makes it more clear; however, that "reporters" track record is the proof.

    • This is just one more reason for term limits!
      Seems to me, the best performance in gov would be offered by citizens in their 30 to 55 range.
      These ages would cover both:
      - young enough to understand the contemporary constituents, and;
      - old enough to have a chance at proper education AND enough experience to be able to use that education,
      and understand what the aging population needs.

      The old farts need to GTFO of the way! They are hurting society!
  • The question is, is it possible to reverse or even slow that decline be getting people to practise hitting buttons repeatedly, e.g. by playing Hungry, hungry hippos? - TFS did say that one of the reasons was being slower at hitting buttons :P

  • Sage advice (Score:5, Insightful)

    by AndyKron ( 937105 ) on Saturday February 19, 2022 @09:39AM (#62283079)
    It's not that we slow down, we just don't give a fuck anymore.

  • According to this model, the decrease in reaction time from age 20 is probably due to people wanting more certainty before making decisions as they age

    So, in other words, wisdom.

    Possibly not always useful in button clicking competitions, but elsewhere in life ...

  • Experience and treachery (Score:3)

    by Registered Coward v2 ( 447531 ) on Saturday February 19, 2022 @10:42AM (#62283163)
    Those two will easily compensate for and slowdown of the brain. Plus, with Alzheimer's you can also honestly say at your trial “I don’t remember doing that”
  • The senators and congress critters, judges, generals, presidents CEOs, CXOs, all over the world, ... almost all of them controlling the density of humanity are over 60.

    Sleep well.

  • I can confirm the accuracy of TFA.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cowdung ( 702933 )

      This is total baloney..
      Wait.. what?

      What were we talking about..

      where are my glasses..

      Alexa where are my glasses!

  • Just we old farts just need more time to go through the memories of hundreds of wrong decisions from our past to know what we should do THIS time to not fuck up again.

    People fresh from the Moon, are faster and wronger. :-)

  • Not 60 yet (Score:5, Informative)

    by lamer01 ( 1097759 ) on Saturday February 19, 2022 @04:25PM (#62284053)
    In my 50s right now and I know for a fact I am not as sharp as I was in my 20s. It's not that I am less intelligent, it's just that finding facts in my brain takes longer. In my 20s I had almost instant recall of anything I had read or seen or heard or whatever. Now, it takes me some time to recall such facts. Life and professional experience thought totally makes up for this speed deficit and in fact I would probably destroy my 20 something self in almost any task.

    • It's a lot quicker to find a specific paragraph in a 20 page book than it is in a 50 page book...
      So says this 61 year old.

      I figured this out a few years ago. My kids were using a word in a funny way. (Sick? Delete? The specific word wasn't important so I didn't remember it). To them the meaning was obvious. I was racing through the dozen or so different ways I'd heard the word used in my life, while trying to match contexts. Then one of my kids espoused, "Dad, you're so slow!" So I started over and did m

  • 60s? (Score:2)

    by antdude ( 79039 )

    I have seen people don't remember in their 40s. Even I don't remember much. My brain died. :(

  • originally designed to measure implicit racial bias. During the task, participants were asked to sort words and images, for example by labelling faces as white or Black,

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