Ten Minutes of Conversation Improves Memory as Much as
Games
Senior citizens concerned about the loss of their mental
abilities and that is about everyone are mostly aware of abundant "use it
or lose it" research results advising
them that to avoid dementia and Alzheimer`s they should exercise their brains.
The suggested games, particularly electronic games and puzzles,Often appear too daunting to many older people. There is
new hope; however, from a University of Michigan study that tested people as
old as 96 and found it only takes about 10 minutes of talking to someone else to improve
your memory.
The study of memory improvement tested people as old as
96. A second test of students found conversation also improves performance on
tests.
"In our study, socializing was just as effective as
more traditional kinds of mental exercise in boosting memory and intellectual
performance," said Oscar Ybarra, a psychologist at the U-M Institute for
Social Research (ISR) and a lead author of the study with ISR psychologist
Eugene Burnstein and psychologist Piotr Winkielman from the University of
California, San Diego.
In the article, Ybarra, Burnstein and colleagues report
on findings from two types of studies they conducted on the relationship
between social interactions and mental functioning.
Their research was funded in part by a grant from the
National Science Foundation and will be published in the February 2008 issue of
the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
In one study, they examined ISR survey data to see
whether there was a relationship between mental functioning and specific
measures of social interaction. The survey data included information on a
national, stratified area probability sample of 3,610 people between the ages
of 24 and 96.
Their mental function was assessed through the
mini-mental exam, a widely used test that measures knowledge of personal
information and current events and that also includes a simple test of working
memory.
Participants' level of social interactions was assessed
by asking how often each week they talked on the phone with friends, neighbors
and relatives, and how often they got together.
After controlling for a wide range of demographic
variables, including age, education, race/ethnicity, gender, marital status and
income, as well as for physical health and depression, the researchers looked
at the connection between frequency of social contact and level of mental
function on the mini-mental exam.
The higher the level of participants' social interaction,
researchers found, the better their cognitive functioning. This relationship
was reliable for all age groups, from the youngest through the oldest.
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