Rich_by_the_Bay
Moderator Emeritus
... both improve with age.
This report mentions how the older brain is like a larger, fuller hard drive. We can recognize truthful patterns because we are taking an eagle's eye view that is not apparent to distractable younger people. Pattern recognition is better and transient distractions do not overwhelm.
It even glorifies the typical older person's "forgetfulness" -- we are searching and sorting a much larger database, discarding the irrelevant, and putting the "found records" in a more accurate context.
I've experienced examples of this personally. A medication came up today which a resident wanted to use on a patient. I couldn't recall the generic name (resident had used the brand name much to my disapproval). She came up with it a moment later, at about the same time it occurred to me that that one was part of a class of drugs that was later found to be too dangerous for most patients (though I still hadn't come up with the generic name). While she was rapidly zeroing in on the generic name, I had leap-frogged that and noted the drug to be dangerous based on a broader (if slower) knowledge base.
I sometimes babble on about preferring "just in time" learning (where I know how to quickly look up and access new information) to "just in case" learning where useless new information is memorized in the hope that it may become necessary soon -- which it rarely is, and clutters the field.
This report mentions how the older brain is like a larger, fuller hard drive. We can recognize truthful patterns because we are taking an eagle's eye view that is not apparent to distractable younger people. Pattern recognition is better and transient distractions do not overwhelm.
It even glorifies the typical older person's "forgetfulness" -- we are searching and sorting a much larger database, discarding the irrelevant, and putting the "found records" in a more accurate context.
I've experienced examples of this personally. A medication came up today which a resident wanted to use on a patient. I couldn't recall the generic name (resident had used the brand name much to my disapproval). She came up with it a moment later, at about the same time it occurred to me that that one was part of a class of drugs that was later found to be too dangerous for most patients (though I still hadn't come up with the generic name). While she was rapidly zeroing in on the generic name, I had leap-frogged that and noted the drug to be dangerous based on a broader (if slower) knowledge base.
I sometimes babble on about preferring "just in time" learning (where I know how to quickly look up and access new information) to "just in case" learning where useless new information is memorized in the hope that it may become necessary soon -- which it rarely is, and clutters the field.
Before big exams, I always make a point of stopping drinking 2-3 months before the exam. I'm not a doctor, but I do remember stuff a lot better if I don't drink.
