If you have ever left a grocery store laden with parcels and realized you had no idea where you\u2019d parked the car, you are not alone.<\/p>\n
Karen Campbell, Assistant Professor in Brock\u2019s Department of Psychology, will talk about why this may happen on Thursday, Jan. 28 when she presents \u201cLearning more, not less: Memory as we age,\u201d a free public webinar offered by the Lifespan Institute Speaker Series.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the biggest memory challenges people face as they age is focusing on what you want to remember and blocking out the distraction or wrongly remembered details that can interfere with what you want to remember,\u201d Campbell says. \u201cFor instance, when you park your car at the store and later want to find it, all the other places where you recently parked may come to mind and get in the way of remembering today\u2019s parking spot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Campbell, who holds a Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience of Aging, recently presented some of her research findings for the Psychonomic Society after receiving their Early Career Award this year. Next week\u2019s talk will be adapted from her lecture and include an overview of several studies, as well as new data from her current research on how the mind and brain change during the course of normal aging.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn particular, we focus in our lab on how the ability to control attention affects memory, showing that older adults are a bit more distractible than younger adults, which can lead to errors in memory, but also some advantages,\u201d Campbell says.<\/p>\n
According to Campbell, there are popular misconceptions when it comes to normal aging and memory, particularly around the idea that a decline in memory is inevitable as we age.<\/p>\n
\u201cSemantic memory, or knowledge, actually increases with age, and implicit memory, or memory that is tested indirectly, is also preserved with age,\u201d says Campbell. \u201cWe have also shown that older adults\u2019 ability to link different pieces of information together, such as a face and a name, does not decline with age as much as people \u2014 including aging researchers \u2014 think it does.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, our ability to be distracted and to connect too many unrelated dots in our minds may impede our memory.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur work suggests that older adults may actually be linking too much information together, and sadly, this does sometimes lead to memory errors,\u201d Campbell says. \u201cI will discuss what we think the implications are for everyday memory.\u201d<\/p>\n