George Rebane

Today’s New York Times article (‘Older Brain Really May Be a Wiser Brain’ by Sara Reistad-Long) on brains of a certain age is glad tidings for all of us of the Happy Days generation long dissed by the younger set.  The bottom line of recently published research says that the reason we older folks have a hard time remembering something is that we have a lot more up there to rummage through before we can find what we’re looking for.

These studies are reported in the recent edition of “Progress in Brain Research” where its authors say that

“(w)hen older people can no longer remember names at a cocktail party, they tend to think that their brainpower is declining. But a growing number of studies suggest that this assumption is often wrong.  Instead, the research finds, the aging brain is simply taking in more data and trying to sift through a clutter of information, often to its long-term benefit. (F)or most aging adults much of what occurs is a gradually widening focus of attention that makes it more difficult to latch onto just one fact, like a name or a telephone number. Although that can be frustrating, it is often useful.”

“It may be that distractibility is not, in fact, a bad thing,” said Shelley H. Carson, a psychology researcher at Harvard whose work was cited in the book. “It may increase the amount of information available to the conscious mind.”

Lots of young people brag about their ability to ‘multi-task’, but it turns out that their mental churnings are really yielding low grade ore compared to the seemingly plodding pace of the typical oldster.  The research shows that having a broader attention span turns out to really be a good thing.

“A broad attention span may enable older adults to ultimately know more about a situation and the indirect message of what’s going on than their younger peers,” says Dr. Lynn Hasher, one of the researchers. “We believe that this characteristic may play a significant role in why we think of older people as wiser.”

Jacqui Smith, a professor of psychology and research professor at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, says there is a word for the result of a mind being able to assimilate data and put it in its proper place — wisdom. 

“These findings are all very consistent with the context we’re building for what wisdom is,” she said. “If older people are taking in more information from a situation, and they’re then able to combine it with their comparatively greater store of general knowledge, they’re going to have a nice advantage.”

Anyway, that’s my latest excuse for having a senior moment, and I’m sticking to it.  Now if they could only change “May be” to “is” in the title of the NYT article.