The
older we get, the more difficult it becomes to put the world around us in
order. Yet, our brain develops remarkable strategies to slow down the effects
of aging.
In order to process
the information that we receive every day, we build categories into which we
sort everything that makes up the world around us. Neuroscientists from
Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) found out: the way we categorise things changes
throughout our lifetimes. Their research results were now published in the
journal Neuropsychologia.
The team surrounding
Sabrina Schenk and Prof. Dr. Boris Suchan observed young and older people
during a categorisation task. The participants of the study were asked to sort
circles with varying colour combinations into one of two categories. Some of
the circles were very similar to each other; others were distinctly different.
To which category the circles belonged was indicated by a feedback during the
test.
Brain waves and gaze
direction offer insights
The scientists not only
documented the test subjects' answers, they also recorded their brain waves via
an EEG and used an eye tracker to trace their line of vision. The results
showed that both young and older subjects had no difficulties categorising the
similar looking circles -- the learning mechanism of both groups were
comparable. It was only in the later stages of the experiment, when distinct
looking circles where shown, that differences between the test groups became
apparent. Older subjects found it more difficult to categorise these exceptions
than their younger counterparts.
Brain compensates with
attentiveness
"There are two
main strategies which we use to categorise things. While we perceive similar
looking members of a category holistically, we must specifically learn
exceptions and memorise them," Schenk explains. "Older people find it
harder to switch from one strategy to the other." But measurements of
brain waves also showed that the elderly develop a particular selective
attentiveness.
To put it simply: they
pay more attention to the details and look more closely than younger people.
This is also confirmed by the eye tracker, which records in which direction the
participants are looking. "To a certain extent, the brain is able to slow
down negative effects of aging by increasing its level of attentiveness,"
summarises Schenk.
Further studies with
gamers
A computer simulation
at Canada's University of Western Ontario has confirmed the results of the
scientists in Bochum. In a next step the RUB team would like to test people
whose attention level has been especially trained, like that of avid computer
players. If these gamers do particularly well in the categorisation task, then
the results may help the elderly specifically train their attentiveness.
Story Source:
Ruhr-Universitaet-Bochum.
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