Questions tagged [aging]
For questions about changes with time in cognition, perception, and emotion in adults.
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Age cues for humans
We can quickly estimate the age of a person just by the look on the face. Even a computer can do that (random link). How does this work? Proportions? Creases? Spots? (Note that any theory should ...
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What can cause us to stop to enjoy music?
I have a growing impression, that people tend to enjoy music less as they grow older, as I look at other people, who used to love to listen to music, now listen to it much less or stops to listen at ...
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Is there any formal documentation and explanation of why people tend to lose curiosity as they age?
Anecdotally, there seems to be overwhelming evidence that people become less curious as they age.
Is there formal, systematic evidence for this?
Further, are there any theories/mechanisms that explain ...
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Mind uploading & its constituents: Theoretically possible?
Is it possible to remove the mind from the rest of the body and have it "alive" somehow as in its former known form? Mind uploading would be computerizing a mind to preserve data, memories and etc.
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How can I properly match subjects in my sample based on behavioral performance?
I have brain and behavioral data for which I am comparing two groups- younger and older adults. I would like to select a subset from the younger and older group that are matched for behavioral ...
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How to prepare when entering the field of Psychology from a professional UX background?
I come from a Computer Science and professional User Experience (UX) Design background and I'll soon be starting an MSc conversion course in Psychology. My interest is to understand human behaviour ...
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Bilingualism and cognitive decline (or dementia risk)
There's apparently a fairly contested research area of bilingualism being neuroprotective against cognitive decline in old age, such as dementia.
What are the main points for and against this ...
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Can you teach an old human new tricks? [closed]
I'm not sure if this is on topic here, but, there's a common phrase 'You can't teach an old dog new tricks'.
This is commonly used as an observation about human behaviour, in that you can expect ...
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Cortisol in Generalized Anxiety Disorder: is there a consensus?
I've seen some recent papers that find elevated cortisol in GAD patients, particularly in older ones, and that SSRI medication lowers cortisol in such GAD patients. However I also found an older study ...
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What does 'Mean Diffusivity' tell me about the connectivity of cortical areas?
I am reading an article about changes in thalamic volume and connections in relation to age and I understand that thalamic volume decreases with age. The authors find that mean diffusivity (MD) in ...
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Does language learning improve or worsen the ability to remember and process information?
In an interview with a Czech neurologist Syka, I've heard that much of the mental health (such as the ability to reason, communicate and process information) in older age mainly depends on the amount ...
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Would Artificial Super-Intelligence From Science Fiction "Speed Up" The Brain and Wear it Out Faster Leading to Earlier Death?
In stories such as Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, the main character, Charlie Gordon, receives an operation on his brain that triples his intelligence.
Could something like this be achieved if ...
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Do online mental age tests have any scientific validity?
If you google for 'mental age calculator', you can find several tests that claim being able to assess your mental age, as opposed to your chronological age.
Is 'mental age' a valid scientific ...
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Why do people get "too old to learn"?
This may be a stereotype, but many of us encounter a lot of people who insist that they can't learn a new technology because they're too old. Some of these people can be brilliant learners in their ...
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At what point in our life do we know what is real?
Is "real" or reality defined during childhood, or as adults? Is this caused by age, or an event?
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What is the most common age for developing psychosis?
Background: Lately I've been watching a lot of Criminal Minds and in the season that I've just finished, one of the main characters - a 20-something Dr. Spencer Reid - is worried that he might be ...
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How does appreciation for music change over time for the same person?
I know that there's a concept of acquired taste, where a child may find certain tastes, like peppers and beer unappealing until certain age or frequency of exposure.
Is there something similar to ...
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How good are people at guessing the ages of their respective ethnic group?
I have a Chinese friend and she says that she has a much harder time guessing Western people's ages than Eastern people's ages. No particular surprise here. For me it's the opposite. I have the ...
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Does the effect of naturalistic exposure on second language acquisition vary with age?
A while back, I watched the movie The Terminal and the main character played by Tom Hanks learns to speak fluent English while he is stranded in the airport for more than a year. Which seems somewhat ...
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Does having a sense of purpose increase longevity?
There is evidence that people who retire early tend to die earlier than people who do not. One interpretation of this finding is that having a sense of purpose improves psychological health and that ...
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To what extent are correlations of father's age with birth defects and autism causal?
I read the following in the paper today:
Dr Karin Hammarberg ... said that while most
children are born healthy, large studies of parental age were starting
to show higher rates of birth ...
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How does raw IQ change over the lifespan at the group-level?
In the classic review of intelligence research (Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns), Neisser et al (1996) write the following
Stability. Intelligence test scores are fairly stable during
...
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Perception of time as a function of age
For many people time seems to run faster as they get older. That is, for an old person an hour, a day or a year seems to be shorter than for a young person.
Is there any hard data for such phenomenon?...
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Is the decline of fluid IQ with age less severe for professors and scientists than it is for other people?
This article in Time magazine suggests that engaging in challenging mental tasks may be associated with lower rates of mental decline in older adults.
The article states that:
In one study, ...
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Do people feel emotions less strongly as they grow older? [closed]
I'm specifically interested in whether or not their maximum ability to feel an emotion decreases as they grow older (so by that I'm meaning - let's ignore the effects of tolerance induced by life ...
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