Mental Aging Is a Natural

Mental aging is a natural process where as age increases, mental abilities tend to decline. It is however generally believed that higher mental activity or exercise to lead to better performance of mental faculties as age increases. The article chosen for this paper tests this hypothesis to finally reveal that there is no significant evidence to indicate optimistic results of mental exercise. The article titled, "Mental Exercise and Mental Aging-Evaluating the Validity of the "Use It or Lose It" Hypothesis, is written by Timothy A. Salthouse for both the sophisticated academia and the student of psychology. The branch of psychology that deals with aging is known as Geriatric psychology.

The article presents its hypothesis, limitations, data and conclusion very clearly and explains the limitations and reasons for conclusion effectively. The author examines various previous study and shows why there had been an optimistic view of mental exercise before. The article is quite lengthy, around 84 pages, but it consists of very useful information and is hence worth reading, the various headings found in the article are as follows:

Abstract

Investigating the Mental activity hypothesis

Training Interventions

Comparisons of pre-existing groups

Special Reports of mental activity

Conclusion

These are the main headings and some headings are followed by sub-headings to clearly identify the different sections in the article.

The author writes the hypothesis clearly and the hypothesis is as follows: "…the

Rate of age-related decline in measures of cognitive functioning will be less pronounced for people who are more mentally active, or, equivalently, that the cognitive differences among people who vary in level of mental activity will be greater with increased age." (p.1)

In my own words, the hypothesis states that the rate at which mental aging would occur in an individual is indirectly proportional to the level of mental exercise that the adult had been engaged in during his life. Higher the level of mental activity, slower would be the rate of mental aging.

The article itself is an amalgamation of analyses of various previous studies. The author himself did not carry out a study but presents data collected from secondary sources. The population for these studies varied with most consisting of older people while some even had college students and younger population for comparison purposes. In some studies two groups of older individuals were compared and in some only self-reported data was used which again had only older population as participants.

The author's method was simply collecting older data through secondary sources like previous studies and researches. He examined the methods used in these studies and critically evaluated them and also mentioned their limitations according to his assessment.

The author has not clearly discussed the significance of his results but he has thoroughly mentioned the results from previous studies and their positive and negatives have been identified too. He shows why some results cannot be trusted and why some were optimistic but are not relevant his particular hypothesis. For example in one study he found that though the results were optimistic, they are not relevant because the researchers had focused on immediate effects on mental exercise instead of its long-term benefits. In other words, the author agrees that there is a significant difference in mental performance immediately after a mentally stimulating exercise but he doesn't agree that the benefits would last a life time or for longer duration of time.

The sections on previous studies are adequately scientific with data presented carefully with the help of graphs. However author has refrained from using very complex language or methods for examining previous studies.