According to an article by David DiSalvo in Forbes, New Study Shows that Your Brain's Powers Change as You Age -- Some Peaking in Your 70s — from the article:
The latest study’s result are based on data from a massive sampling of people, nearly 50,000, whose ages spanned from their teens to their 70s. It shows that mental ability is staggered across the years, with some abilities peaking early and others taking decades to mature.
For example, the study found that brain processing speed is quickest when we’re around 18 and slowly declines from that point forward. But that doesn’t change the fact that our vocabulary skills, written and verbal, require many more years before they peak in our 60s and 70s.
We’re most able to remember things we see (visual working memory) when we’re around 25, but our ability to remember numbers doesn’t peak for another 10 years. Short-term memory overall doesn’t take full shape until we approach middle age (generally around 35).
Additional coverage at Medical Daily. An abstract is available on PubMed: When Does Cognitive Functioning Peak? The Asynchronous Rise and Fall of Different Cognitive Abilities Across the Life Span. A very readable 11-page PDF is available on the web site of one of the researchers.
I find it especially interesting that Figure 2 in the PDF shows many peaks coinciding at approximately 50 years of age!
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 25 2015, @10:01AM
You damn kids get off my lawn.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by jbWolf on Wednesday March 25 2015, @01:00PM
You're not old enough to be using this phrase because you're obviously not in your 60's or 70's. You forgot your comma: "You damn kids, get off my lawn." Reference [about.com]
(I am so going to karma hell for this...)
www.jb-wolf.com [jb-wolf.com]
(Score: 3, Touché) by fadrian on Wednesday March 25 2015, @01:07PM
Allowing yourself to be pedantic is its own reward.
That is all.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday March 25 2015, @12:45PM
Given your ability to extract useful information from data and comprehend the picture at a glance, I wonder what your age can be?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by martyb on Wednesday March 25 2015, @02:59PM
I'm too old to act my age!
;)
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Wednesday March 25 2015, @06:52PM
How do these findings relate with regard to the success of our species over the past couple hundred thousand years?
I am not an evolutionary psychologist/neuroscientist, but it seems to me that peaks in various types of mental ability *could* be evolutionary adaptations which promote the survival of the species.
From a broad perspective, perhaps the importance of specific mental abilities change throughout the life cycle:
1. Birth to six or seven years: Strong learning/information gathering skills/basic skills acquisition
2. Seven to fourteen years: Strong skill acquisition/refinement, learning and basic reasoning skills
3. Fourteen to 25 years: Strong skill acquisition/refinement, complex reasoning and information consolidation, creative/compositional thought processes
4. 25 to 40 years: Enhanced skill refinement, honing of reasoning skills and creative/compositional thought processes
5. 40 years and older: Skill refinement, enhanced *use* of reasoning skills, use of existing knowledge, development of communication skills for instruction and knowledge transfer.
This is just off the top of my head, and yes, this is quite broad and there is quite a bit of overlap. From a species survival standpoint, it makes sense IMHO.
As a child, one's role is to survive and learn how to interact constructively in your social group.
As an older child/young adult, one's role is to survive, continue to learn constructive skills and behaviors, and to contribute to the well-being of the social group.
As an adult, one's role is to survive, reproduce, care for children and contribute to the well-being of the social group.
As an older adult, one's role is to survive, care for children and contribute to the well-being of the social group. Once the older adult becomes less able to perform the physical tasks associated with social contribution, mental tasks (keeping records/history, teaching the young, advising the rest of the social group) become more important.
Taken this way, it seems to me that changes in the types of mental abilities makes a lot of sense. Of course, I am completely full of it, since I don't have any evidence. At the same time, I think Ockham's Razor [wikipedia.org] applies, no?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr