Does Memory Improve with Age? Article Review

In this article, the author Simons (2012) refutes common assumptions by various people alluding that forgetfulness increases by age and lead to total loss of memories as well as lack of ability to remember things. According to him, a forgetful older person is a stereotype that has been perpetuated by false perceptions and media which places focus on age related failings that are perceived among popular individuals such as Rupert Murdock, Menzies Campbell, and Ronald Reagan among others. Simons derives evidence from various scientific studies pointing out that individual perception and stereotyping as contributing poor cognitive performance among older adults. He notes that the memory can subsequently improves if this perception about themselves is changed or in other words if there self image is enhanced. Further, the author’s evaluation also notes that despite a significant number of memory components being affected by age, there a significant level of aspects that remains unchanged.Therefore, it is important for individuals to capitalize on those abilities that are not subject to change in order to make the most out of them in maintain their memory.

The information in this article can be said to be credible considering that the author Dr Jon Simons is himself a cognitive neuroscientist who is based at the Cambridge University, Department of experimental psychology. In addition, a number of studies have also backed up the idea that though some aspects of the memory may show a significant level of decline; there are a good number of them that do not tear with age. Furthermore, the cognitive functions which could be affected by age including memory and attention are not unitary functions and may be a result of many other factors and not necessarily age (Verhaeghen and Cerella, 2002).

On his part, Craik et al (2000) established through various studies that many older individuals could outdo younger adults in some cognitive functions. In addition, the researchers also found out that many older adults were of the sale level in cognitive abilities as the younger adults. This variability has been a question of immense interests among researchers, psychologists and doctors in understanding the possible causes of these differences. What these findings imply is that one can have a good memory in old age and that this memory can even be better than that of some younger people if it is maintained well in terms of good diet and exercising which we already identified earlier.