Qualitative Changes
Most research on memory and aging has focused on how older adults perform less well at a particular memory task. However, recently researchers have also discovered that simply saying that older adults are doing the same thing, only less of it, is not always accurate. In some cases, older adults seem to be using different strategies than younger adults. For example, brain imaging studies have revealed that older adults are more likely to use both hemispheres when completing memory tasks than younger adults. In addition, older adults sometimes show a positivity effect when remembering information, which seems to be a result of the increased focus on regulating emotion seen with age. For instance, eye tracking reveals that older adults showed preferential looking toward happy faces and away from sad faces.
Read more about this topic: Memory And Aging
Famous quotes containing the word qualitative:
“You ask: What is it that philosophers have called qualitative states? I answer, only half in jest: As Louis Armstrong is said to have said when asked what jazz is, ‘If you got to ask, you ain’t never gonna get to know.’”
—Ned Block (b. 1942)