Older people show significant cognitive benefits from learning, provided they have the opportunity to do so | Analysis
In most adults, learning and thinking plateau and then begin to decline after age 30 or 40. People start to perform worse in tests of cognitive abilities such as processing speed, the rate at which someone does a mental task. The slide becomes steeper after 60 years of age.
Our work suggests that the cessation of learning is indeed a setback for adults—but we have also found that this decline can be addressed. A three-month intervention we designed enhanced participants’ memory and attention so drastically that their abilities came to resemble those of adults 30 years younger at the program’s end. And amazingly, they continued to improve long after the classes were over.
To be clear, we do not think that formal education is the only or most important way to support learning. Our idea is to instead create enriched environments for older adults, especially for those with few resources, so that they can increase both real-world skills and cognitive abilities over the long term.
For those who have limited time or resources, encouraging new skill learning, as our interventions have done, may be especially advantageous. In later years many personal and societal changes—such as moving out of state to be closer to family members, switching jobs or coping with physical distancing from loved ones—make learning new skills necessary to adapt and succeed.
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