Skip to content

News Health

Health News, Tips, and More

Menu
  • Disclaimer
  • Related Sites
Menu

Older brains more use of useless information

Posted on January 20, 2010 by News Health

A long line of research has already shown that aging is associated with a decreased ability to tune out irrelevant information. Now scientists at Baycrest’s world-renowned Rotman Research Institute have demonstrated that when older adults “hyper-encode” extraneous information – and they typically do this without even knowing they’re doing it – they have the unique ability to “hyper-bind” the information; essentially tie it to other information that is appearing at the same time.

The study, which appears online this week in the journal Psychological Science, was led by Karen Campbell, a PhD student in psychology at the University of Toronto, with supervision from Rotman senior scientist Dr. Lynn Hasher, a leading authority in attention and inhibitory functioning in younger and older adults.

“We found that older brains are not only less likely to suppress irrelevant information than younger brains, but they can link the relevant and irrelevant pieces of information together and implicitly transfer this knowledge to subsequent memory tasks,” said Campbell.

In the study, 24 younger adults (17 – 29 years) and 24 older adults (60 – 73 years) participated in two computer-based memory tasks that were separated by a 10-minute break. In the first task, they were shown a series of pictures that were overlapped by irrelevant words (e.g. picture of a bird and the word “jump”). They were told to ignore the words and concentrate on the pictures only. Every time they saw the same picture twice in a row, they were to press the space bar. After completing this task and following a 10-minute break, they were tested on a “paired memory task” which essentially challenged them to recall how the pictures and words were paired together from the first task. They were shown three kinds of paired pictures – preserved pairs (pictures with overlap words that they saw in the first task), disrupted pairs (pictures they saw in the first task but with different overlap words) and new pairs (new pictures and new words they hadn’t seen before).

The older adults showed a 30% advantage over younger adults in their memory for the preserved pairs (the irrelevant words that went with the pictures in the first task) relative to the new pairs.

“This could be a silver lining to aging and distraction,” said Dr. Hasher, senior scientist on the study. “Older adults with reduced attentional regulation seem to display greater knowledge of seemingly extraneous co-occurrences in the environment than younger adults. As this type of knowledge is thought to play a critical role in real world decision- making, older adults may be the wiser decision-makers compared to younger adults because they have picked up so much more information.”

Provided by Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Posts

  • Signs of Opiate Addiction to Look for in a Loved One
  • Why Hospital Waste Disposal Services Are Crucial for the Health and Safety of Patients
  • How Much Does TMS Cost?
  • The Basics of Health Insurance
  • Local Resources to Help You Discover What Is Health Protection
  • Accident Resources After Being in a Car Wreck
  • How Summer Camp Can Improve Mental Health in Children
  • Choose the Right Volleyball Equipment With These Tips
  • Resources to Help Families Be Healthy and Smart
  • Answering Your Questions About Alcohol Rehab

Archives

June 2023
M T W T F S S
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
2627282930  
« May    
© 2023 News Health | Powered by Superbs Personal Blog theme