A while back, an Adult Development PhD encouraged the audience to think of their memories like the fortune-telling 8-ball we played with as kids.
“The answers are all in there,” she said. “It just takes longer for them to reach the window.”
Most of her audience were in their late 40s. Our speed-to-the-window would have been measured in nano-seconds (which we did not know about at the time). Her message was less relevant to me then.
Nowadays, that ball is a reassuring image. My window could be cleaned, though, to clear the fuzz.
I recalled the 8-ball recently when reading a story about German researchers who concluded that one reason many older people can be slower to recall facts or learn new information is that their brains are so stuffed with accumulated knowledge, not because of supposed inevitable cognitive decline.
“The brains of older people do not get weak,” Michael Ramsicar of Tubingen University said to the UK’s The Independent. “On the contrary, they simply know more.”
Ramsicar went on to observe that computers with less information stored in memory often retrieve requested data more quickly while machines packed with information are slower.
I worried at this point in the report. Computer chip-makers compete over speed of retrieval. Fine, two computers of the same make and model may have different retrieval speeds according to the volume stored. But, inevitably, there will be newer, faster models.
I calmed myself with the thought that capacity in the older computers—and me—does not disappear. The speed is just slower. Or so the researchers assert.
One study cited by the Germans noted research tests that involved trying to remember pairs of unrelated words. They concluded that older people often achieve a higher performance because they have a “better understanding of language” and are, as a result, “naturally resistant to nonsensical pairings.”
I hope the researchers are in their 30s or 40s so that they cannot be accused of age bias.
People of a certain age, do you realize what this means? We know stuff, lots of it. We naturally resist nonsensical pairings, because we understand language better. Our tip-of-the-tongue moments are mere manifestations of brains bursting with information.
Take that, you young whippersnappers who think you know everything. Your incessant “text-speak” will lead to difficulty down the road resisting nonsensical pairings! Or not. You might just become older, like us, with all of the attendant advantages of age.
Senior moments as battle ribbons. The world turned upside down, just like you had to do with the 8-ball to get an answer. If we only knew that it was true.
We seniors fret about memory. We joke about premature senility, nervous because we have friends and acquaintances who are senile for real. Maybe we subconsciously worry about our prospects in terms of the dreaded Big A—Alzheimer’s.
We scrub the bad stuff from memory as much as possible and use shared memories in conversations with old friends to recapture treasured feelings. At the same time, we try to avoid living so much in the past that we lose the present. Or bore the young people.
Not being able to find the car keys is a momentary nuisance. Inability to experience again the joy of a given moment in the past is a treasure none of us wants to lose.
Cognitive scientists understand so much more about the human brain than before. What they are learning has stimulated the development of products and activities designed to maintain and increase memory. That’s good. I have friends who have bought the most widely advertised commercial plan available, and swear by its effectiveness.
One author cited research that touted regularly learning new things as the best way to insure active memory remaining alive and accessible. In a nutshell, this neurological exercise program stimulates the development of neurons and revitalized synapses and brain connections. Use it or lose it. One of the suggested activities was to learn a new language, “like Italian.” If that prompts a return to Florence, sign me up.
The Germans might be right. If so, imagine if someone could invent a memory-scrubber that ditched what you didn’t need or want, maintaining brain capacity levels. Better yet, a memory stick, to store the possibly useful but not necessarily first-rate recollections.
If they are incorrect, maybe brain scientists will find how to save the memories we subliminally fear losing.
In the meantime, I’ll keep the 8-ball oiled and clean the window. Capiche?