New memory study says the aged know more, but it‘s harder to remember

To live is to forget.

Perhaps you, like me, have wandered from room to room searching for your glasses only to discover them hidden in plain sight perched atop your head. Or maybe you’ve hopped off the sofa only to find yourself in the garage with no idea why you’re in the garage.

Cats do this. They walk around aimlessly and find themselves staring at the wall for no apparent reason.

I have a pretty good memory. I only drive past my street twice a week and can name three of the past four vice-presidents. Still, sometimes I worry.

Like when I start to tell a story I’ve told ten thousand times and suddenly all the details go AWOL.

“You know, that guy … ,” I’ll plead. “The big guy with that thing on his face.” Suddenly unable to remember not only his name, but what that thing on his face is.

Some people have an iron trap memory for hurts, slights, and every cruel word ever said to them. I just want to remember the punch line.

And the sound of my grandfather’s voice.

The young have snickered at their elders since Og the cave man first discovered fire. But the tide may finally be turning thanks to a study published in the “Journal of Topics in Cognitive Science” that claims we don’t decline mentally as we age we simply take longer to remember.


Because the elderly have so much more to remember.

“The brains of older people do not get weak,” says Dr. Michael Ramscar. “On the contrary they simply know more.”

As opposed to your average 14-year-old who thinks he knows everything.

All kids watch their parents search for missing car keys or worry in the car if they remembered to unplug the iron and convince themselves that they’ll never be like them!

Meanwhile every 14-year-old I’ve ever met is already more forgetful than your average octogenarian, unable to remember his homework, to take out the trash, walk the dog he swore he’d walk, or even change his underwear and bathe without being reminded.

Professor Harald Baayen, the head researcher at the Alexander von Humboldt Quantitative Linguistics research group at Tubingen University in Germany, the folks who did the study, claims the brain of an elderly person is like a computer hard drive jam-packed with data. The information has to be sifted before the answer spits out.

Who am I to argue with the Alexander von Humboldt Quantitative whatchamacallit?

So while we might fumble for cousin Sheila’s third husband’s name, don’t panic. German scientists say it’s in there somewhere, we just need to give our brains time for it to download. Consider your next nap a geriatric brain reboot.


Meanwhile, our allegedly sharp-witted offspring are being graded on a curve.

According to the study, young people test better on cognitive exams because the elderly know the questions are silly.

Memory tests present the subject with two unrelated words like “lamp” and “applesauce.” The whippersnappers do better at recalling disassociated words because the elderly know they aren’t worth remembering. Lamp doesn’t go with applesauce.

Long experience with language hard wires our brain for word associations like “pizza and beer” or “brazen hussy.” Makes sense. Have you ever met a demure hussy?

You can’t fool an old dog.

My theory on memory is simpler; people remember what they want to remember.

Every kid knows to the second when school gets out and every senior citizen knows to the penny what kind of bump they’re getting in Social Security.

If we forget more as we get older maybe it’s because we’ve lived long enough to cherish what’s worth remembering.

We’re not getting senile, we’re becoming more selective.


About the Author

Doug McIntyre
