Description: Do you have an aging relative who is still remarkably sharp mentally, who can remember details of many things, is quick to respond to comments with humour and insight and who, from a mental point of view seems much younger than their years? Well, if so, there is a name for that sort of… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Basic Cognitive Functions In Aging: Information Processing Attention Memory
Aging and Fake News: A Big Deal?
Description: Who is most susceptible to fake news? Children? Young adults? Middle aged adults? The elderly? Let’s leave children out of the question for now as their fake news exposures and uptakes are, at least to some extent, their parents’ concern. What about the elderly? ON the one hand they have less access to the… Read more »
Is Our Attention Slipping or is it Being Stolen?
Description: Consider this shift over recent historical time (time that I have lived through so far). Time was that one of the most common bits of advice offered regarding how to live a more effective life or at least how to work more efficiently and profitably was to learn how to multi-task or to do… Read more »
Doing Magic for Animals
Description: Do you like magic tricks? Thinking back to your childhood (assuming you say one or two magic shows) can you remember the point in your development where your reaction to seeing a magic trick shifted from “Wow that was amazing magic” to “Wow, how did they do that.” At some point we (well almost… Read more »
Stuff to Remember? Sleep On It!
Description: Decades ago, when I was in grade 7, we had grade-wide exams in a number of subjects. I was particular keen to do well on the science exam. One of the topic areas on the exam was the periodic table and I set out to memorize the names, symbols and atomic numbers of all… Read more »
Getting Lost While Grocery Shopping
Description: The two (same chain) large grocery stores near my neighbourhood have been undergoing renovations over the past 2 months. In both cases this has involved changes in the layout of each store and the relocation of where particular things can be found. I used to know both of these stores well. I could easily… Read more »
When or How Might Mis-remembering be Good?
Description: Imagine you are chatting with one of your grandparents about a trip you took with them last summer and you are reminiscing about a stop you made at a bakery, and they are saying they still remember the taste of the peanut butter cookie they had while you were there. In thinking about that… Read more »
Child Minds vs Adult Minds: One Species or Two?
Description: Here is a scientific creativity problem for you. What might it mean to say that, in terms of how their minds are organized and how they engage with the world, that human adults and human small children are basically different species? Puzzle on that for a little bit, drawing upon what you know or… Read more »
Why Are Some Old Memories So Much Stronger Than New Memories?
Description: What was the name of your best friend in grade 1? What did you have for lunch the day before yesterday? We most often find that the older memory is still there but the more recent one is not, or is, at least, harder to recover. I have no doubt that you could come… Read more »
New Canadian Cannabis Laws and Teenage Brains
Description: This next Wednesday the use of cannabis or marijuana will become legal in Canada. If you live in Canada you cannot have missed the torrent of media on things like the formation and marketing of companies to produce, market and sell marijuana or the public service ads pointing out that toking/ingesting and driving are… Read more »
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