Mental speed hardly changes over a lifespan
Study shows that the speed of cognitive information processing remains
largely stable over decades
Date:
February 18, 2022
Source:
Heidelberg University
Summary:
Mental speed -- the speed at which we can deal with issues requiring
rapid decision-making -- does not change substantially over decades.
Psychologists have come to this conclusion. They evaluated
data from a large-scale online experiment with over a million
participants. The findings of the new study suggest that the speed
of cognitive information processing remains largely stable between
the ages of 20 and 60, and only deteriorates at higher ages.
FULL STORY ========================================================================== Mental speed -- the speed at which we can deal with issues requiring
rapid decision-making -- does not change substantially over
decades. Psychologists at Heidelberg University have come to this
conclusion. Under the leadership of Dr Mischa von Krause and Dr Stefan
Radev, they evaluated data from a large-scale online experiment with
over a million participants. The findings of the new study suggest that
the speed of cognitive information processing remains largely stable
between the ages of 20 and 60, and only deteriorates at higher ages. The Heidelberg researchers have hereby called into question the assumption
to date that mental speed starts to decline already in early adulthood.
==========================================================================
"The common assumption is that the older we get, the more slowly we react
to external stimuli. If that were so, mental speed would be fastest at
the age of about twenty and would then decline with increasing age,"
says Dr von Krause, a researcher in the Quantitative Research Methods department headed by Prof. Dr Andreas Voss at Heidelberg University's
Institute of Psychology. In order to verify this theory, the researchers reevaluated data from a large-scale American study on implicit biases. In
the online experiment with over a million participants, subjects had to
press a button to sort pictures of people into the categories "white" or "black" and words into the categories "good" or "bad." According to Dr
von Krause, the content focus was of minor importance in the Heidelberg
study. Instead, the researchers used the large batch of data as an example
of a response-time task to measure the duration of cognitive decisions.
When evaluating the data, Dr von Krause and his colleagues noted that, on average, the response times of the test subjects rose with increasing age.
However, with the aid of a mathematical model, they were able to show
that this phenomenon was not due to changes in mental speed. "Instead,
we think that older test subjects are mainly slower because they reply
more cautiously and concentrate more on avoiding mistakes," Mischa von
Krause explains. At the same time, motor execution speed slows down during
the course of adult life: older participants in the experiment needed
longer to press the appropriate key after they had found the right answer.
Another finding of the study was that average information processing
speed only progressively declined with participants over the age of
60. "It looks as though, in the course of our life, we don't need to
fear any substantial losses of mental speed -- particularly not in the
course of a typical working life," says Mischa von Krause. "Generally
speaking, we should also note that the test subjects in all age groups
included individuals with high and low mental speeds. Our results relate
to the average trend." The German Research Foundation (DFG) funded the research work in the context of the research training group for doctoral students "Statistical Modelling in Psychology" (GRK 2277). The results
were published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour.
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always get wrong about diet and exercise. Claim_yours_now_>>> ========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Heidelberg_University. Note: Content
may be edited for style and length.
========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Mischa von Krause, Stefan T. Radev, Andreas Voss. Mental speed
is high
until age 60 as revealed by analysis of over a million participants.
Nature Human Behaviour, 2022; DOI: 10.1038/s41562-021-01282-7 ==========================================================================
Link to news story:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220218153047.htm
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