10 ms·
The aging mind: neuroplasticity in response to cognitive training (2013)
- RaceWon 8y ago58 years old here, been into speed sports my entire life.. still am as a matter of fact. I still have stunning reation times, maybe it's genetic but I can do more pushups than my age of course I work out. And I don't consider myself old, I like hop hop, some rap. FWIW.
- whorleater 8y agoIsn't convincing yourself you're not old based on your music tastes the first thing old people do
- padthai 8y agoBesides that, isn't hip hop like 40 years old? To put this into context to the HN audience, Unix is from around the same time.
- yborg 8y agoYou have to be a little more specific about artists. If you're a big Run DMC fan, you aren't going to convince anybody how hip you are to hip hop. And if you call it 'hop hop' you've got a 30 Rock moment : https://youtu.be/fiOMbqPHFwo?t=29s https://youtu.be/fiOMbqPHFwo?t=29s
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- jerf 8y agoOnce upon a time, maybe, but somewhere in the 80s or 90s music seems to have matured and while a lot of details have changed since then, the core hasn't. Where the "pop music" is today hasn't changed much in a while. I could probably still freak out my 65 year old parents, but I'm not sure what my children could do at this point to freak me out. Listen to things I don't like, sure, that's not very hard, but freak me out? Not sure what that could be.
- mattmanser 8y agoI was sitting in a cab the other day with the radio on, some pop song playing. To me it was an 80s drum beat with a 90s style ballad laid over the top. I lived through the rise of Grunge, EDM, Rap, Hip Hop, etc. and recent music just seems to be mish-mashes of all existing styles rather than anything new. It just feels like there's been no new style of music for 20 years. Last vaguely new style I remember hearing is dark cabaret.
- sirspacey 8y agoCheck out the early albums of Tycho and alt-J on Spotify with related artists.
- mattmanser 8y agoTycho is EDM and alt-j is indie rock. Not sure why you think alt-j is a new genre, listen to metric, London Grammar, the XX, arcade fire, etc. from a decade ago. It's just a slight variation on existing indie rock. It's good, but it's not a whole new genre.
- goldmouth 8y agoIt might not "freak you out" how would you feel if your kids told you their new favorite rapper is 6ix9ine. https://youtu.be/gAs9HZC9c7Y https://youtu.be/gAs9HZC9c7Y
- jerf 8y agoThere is content I would happily ban, and not give a rats ass about what HN thinks about my ban (HN is not invited into my parenting relationship, for both obvious reasons and ones less obvious [1]), but it's not the "music" that would freak me out. Take that same text and set it to Beethoven's 5th, and it would be banned. Take different text and set it to the same "music" and it would not "freak me out". I'd very strongly dislike it, but that's not the same thing. (I think "freak out" involves some virtue signaling against the music, and some conflation of the morality of certain styles of music. I have a hard time believing in the "immorality" of a style of music. Content, no question, but not style.) (I rather expect to "strongly dislike" what my oldest son ends up discovering and settling on as his favorite music. I expect he's going to discover "trance" one day and just adore it. To me it's almost the opposite of what I'm looking for in music. But other than insisting that I don't have to hear it, I've got no plans to cut it off for musical reasons. In fact... sigh... it's likely to be me who introduces it to him as something he may like.) [1]: I will say having watched our culture evolve over the past ~30 years, I've come to a greater understanding of the importance of watching what you take in, and I try to feed things to my kids that aren't junk. There's a lot of analogy to the way we are currently collectively groping towards a realization that social media patterns aren't neutral. But what the HN gestalt labels junk and what I label junk are going to be very, very different things. (And before someone jumps down my throat about even that, bear in mind that A: I'm not completely controlling everything; that doesn't scale because they need to learn to deal with this on their own and B: they have repeatedly told me that I do indeed bring the good stuff; I don't keep this policy a secret from them, and they aren't pushing back against it either, because I deliver.)
- mickronome 8y agoNo, many people even as young as 35 tend to have tremendous nostalgia regarding the music of their youth, to the point that I who rarely exhibit any form of nostalgia often have trouble connecting with them. Regarding other things, yes people like to make themselves feel young by adopting styles and activities usually associated with younger people. But music is more rarely one of them, especially genres popularized after their twenties.
- umanwizard 8y agoYounger than that, even. I'm 28 and a lot of people 25-30 (including me!) really love doing 90s music at karaoke and things like that.
- saudioger 8y agoWhile simultaneously getting the name of your music tastes wrong
- lbenes 8y agoOr maybe he's just more hip to the latest fads than you? /s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxDRKhrorHI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxDRKhrorHI
- shrimp_emoji 8y agoAs is convincing yourself you're mature! I'm 8 but I think '90s music is better than today's music. Also I think classical music is cool.
- Buldak 8y agoWhat are speed sports?
- tzahola 8y ago>hop hop How do you do, fellow kids?
- creep 8y agoI love hop hop too.
- eyeball 8y agoTime to bust out the math books and get training I guess. 40 and feeling dumb as shit lately. Forgetting things I’d never forget before. Trouble concentrating for many hours at a time like I used to be able to. Etc. Very suspicious that it’s the statin I started 5 years ago. My doctor says “don’t believe the statin skepticism. You’re just getting older”. Fahk.
- nikkwong 8y agoI'd second other commenters in that you should get your sleep checked out. I had unchecked sleep apnea for about a year and wasn't able to learn or remember anything during that period. Sleep apnea is very subtle, some people go untreated for decades and are shocked to find they have it. I was 26 when I was diagnosed, lean, and otherwise in great shape—so, really, anyone could fall victim—it's worth looking into. Further reading: https://www.menshealth.com/health/a19532060/sleep-apnea-could-be-killing-you/ https://www.menshealth.com/health/a19532060/sleep-apnea-coul...
- SQL2219 8y agoDoesn't the brain thrive on cholesterol? I thought I read this somewhere. Also, the study mentions that your brain training tasks should be something you enjoy, so not sure about the math books route.
- eyeball 8y agoBrain is made of it, so the anti-statin story goes. Math is fun.
- eyeball 8y agoHere's a prime example of the typical article suggesting that statins are bad for the brain: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/diagnosis-diet/201709/low-brain-cholesterol-separating-fact-fiction https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/diagnosis-diet/20170...
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- walterbell 8y agoVision therapy for presbyopia and myopia relies partly on neuroplasticity: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16194580 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16194580
- madeuptempacct 8y agoI am yet to see a single fucking study that actually follows an eye exercise program for a significant amount of time, yet the science community claims improvement is impossible without surgery.
- ProxCoques 8y agoThis paper looks at the benefits of "engagement in an environment that requires sustained cognitive effort". This seems to support the idea that playing music might be one of the better things you can do to maintain or improve cognition based on this article: https://www.inc.com/john-rampton/the-benefits-of-playing-music-help-your-brain-more.html https://www.inc.com/john-rampton/the-benefits-of-playing-mus... (BTW I'm 52 and have played drums since I was 12. I think that counts as being a musician. But I'm not sure...)
- Ensorceled 8y agoReminds me of the old joke: What do you call somebody who hangs out with a group of musicians? A drummer.
- chrisweekly 8y agoHeh. Or, "How do you know the stage is level?" "The drummer* drools out of both sides of his mouth." *or bass player
- davidy123 8y agoIf we're telling mean musician jokes, my favourite: Q. What do you call a bass player without a (girl|boy)friend? A. Homeless.
- Cognitron 8y agoHow do you know when a drummer is at the door? The knocking speeds up. How do you know when a singer is at the door? They don't have the key, and they never know when to come in.
- retzkek 8y agoI recently attended a talk by Dr. Nina Kraus of Northwestern University [1], her main thesis was exactly that, based on evidence from many studies: playing music (even badly) has an incredible effect on cognition. In particular on speech comprehension, which of course has a strong relationship with rhythm [2]. [1] http://www.brainvolts.northwestern.edu/ http://www.brainvolts.northwestern.edu/ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INt4GGr-EGU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INt4GGr-EGU
- raywu 8y agoTIL HN audience has a wide range of age
- ak39 8y agoWhat was your initial assumption?
- la6470 8y agoPlaying two hours of first person shooter games keeps me young
- salimmadjd 8y agoFYI article is from (2013). I had an interesting personal experience recently. I’ve been trying to learn Russian from Duolingo and to better enable myself, got a few books on Russian grammar etc. I read them at night in bed. While I was trying to memorize a grammatical rule by reading over it a few time. I suddenly had a recollection from a early childhood. First I had this visceral feeling inside. Very similar how a smell might trigger a feeling of memory inside. Then I remembered something very vividly that I had not thought about or had completely forgotten. It almost felt like while my brain was trying to memorize something, it reactivated something inside. I’m now curious if this was a random coincidence or if memorizing something new will help me keep older memories or reactivate some forgotten ones.
- bitwize 8y agoYou tried to allocate memory for the new information, and exceeded your current max heap. When you remembered that thing for long ago, it's because your GC scanned it :)
- justifier 8y agoI've wondered something about dreams that if taken as explanation is very similar Conjecture: during sleep the mind moves short term to long term memory, when formed, the memory fires adjacent nuerons and these fired nuerons form the dream In your case, seeking an old memory may have fired other adjacent nuerons, perhaps ones that have been dormant for some time I will do this when trying to remember something.. think around an memory and my own exposure to it contextually hoping to indirectly find the desired memory
- praulv 8y agoIn general, this happens to me while trying to fall asleep. Very random, distinct, sharp and lucid childhood memories of certain points in time, though I do have be drifting into sleep. I've certainly never had it when trying to actively memorize new material.
- holografix 8y agoSame here. Can actually consciously try to remember events 20+ years ago and often that will trigger a memory I haven’t recollected in a very long time. A person, an event, etc. Happens very well when I just wake up.
- skyisblue 8y agoHas anyone tried dual n back? Has it improved your cognitive function?
- madeuptempacct 8y agoNo, I can't be assed to do it for more than a few weeks. I keep reading research on it, and it seems inconclusive. Gwern (https://www.gwern.net/DNB-FAQ https://www.gwern.net/DNB-FAQ) did a lot of research - a lot of anecdotal evidence for increased IQ scores. I think the only way to know is to try it. Take an IQ test (Preferably Raven's), do n-back for three months (exactly as they did in the studies), take another IQ test. Post on here if you do. Seems like WM should improve your coding significantly too, if it can in fact be improved. P.S. I can maybe do 6-7 back, and I am CFA, was in top 1% on SATs, etc. A lot of my friends and the articles claim 12-back, but I am yet to see it irl. When I did it for a couple of weeks, I saw no improvement. What are good tests for mental decline?
- a_w 8y agoAccording to this NHK medical frontiers show [0][1], Japanese researchers demonstrate that doing daily basic math exercises and reading aloud is good for the brain. So I built a basic math exercise generator app [2]. [0] https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/medicalfrontiers/20170905/2050039/ https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/medicalfrontiers/20170... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qr-5urj2WKY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qr-5urj2WKY [2] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.brainmath https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.brainmath
- myth_drannon 8y agoFor anyone interested in the topic I suggest reading Norman Doidge's books, like "The Brain That Changes Itself" . http://www.normandoidge.com/ http://www.normandoidge.com/