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How Does Age Change How You Learn? | Scott H Young
Learning Slows Down with Age
Most aspects of mental processing slow down as we age. While we continue to accumulate knowledge of the world at a slower rate, we gain more experience that increases our wisdom.
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Key Ideas
Learning a second language
Research shows that children are proficient at learning a second language up until the age of 18, roughly ten years later than earlier estimates. It also shows that it is best to start another lang...
The decline in language learning
There are three possible reasons why the ability to learn a language decreases at 18.
- Social changes: At 18, late teens typically graduate high school and may no longer have the time, opportunity or learning environment to study a second language.
- Interference: The rules of a first language may interfere with the ability to learn a second language.
- Continuing brain development: Changes in the brain that continue during the late teens and early 20s may make learning harder.
Learning a new language
There are many examples of people who pick up a language later in life. Our ability to learn new vocabulary appears to remain constant, but most of us will not be able to master grammar like a native speaker.
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In the intelligence field, there is a distinction between:
- "fluid" intelligence (indexed by tests of abstract reasoning and pattern detection);
- "crystallized" intelli...
The peak of our cognitive functions
There's no age at which humans are performing at peak on all cognitive tasks - our various cognitive functions peak at different times and past a certain age it might make more sense to view adult intelligence not through the lens of youthful general processing speed and reasoning, but through the lens of expertise, wisdom, and purpose.
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Key Ideas
Never stop learning
Research shows that people with more education have a greater cognitive reserve and this works as a protection in the face of mental decline.
But there's a twist to it: educated people t...
Crosswords
Cognitive activities like crossword puzzles, reading or playing music may delay memory decline among people who eventually developed dementia.
Stereotype threat
It happens when a person is in a situation where they are anxious that they may conform to a negative stereotype aimed at his or her social group.
Positive stereotypes, or success on previous memory tasks, can help combat this negativity.