Good news for those of us who have a few miles on the clock reaches my ears today from a study by Ramscar, Hendrix, Shaoul, Milin & Baayen. They argue that the commonly held belief that cognitive decline is responsible for the systematic performance differences observed between younger and older people in psychometric tests is incorrect. Instead, they provide evidence that differences in performance are due to the inevitable consequences that (greater) learning has on our ability to process information. As we accumulate more skills and knowledge through life, our experience mediates how quickly we respond to stimuli – and this is usually a good thing.
In other words, faster isn’t always better!