How does age change how you learn?(2)年龄如何影响学习能力?(二)

Do different people experience decline differently?

不同人经历的认知衰退会有不同吗?

Do all people experience cognitive decline uniformly?Or do some people’s minds slip while others stay sharp much longer?
所有人经历的认知衰退都是一样的吗?还是有些人的思维衰退，另一些人却能长期保持敏锐?

These seems to be a little conflict on this point in the research.One literature review I found argues in favor of cognitive decline being mostly linear as we age and not increasing in variance.This suggests that, absent illness, we’re all on roughtly the same trajectory of cognitive slowdown.
在这一点上，研究还没有达成共识。我找到的一篇文献综述认为，随着年龄增长，认知的衰退几乎是线性的，而且人与人之间的差异也没有增加。这意味着，如果没有疾病，我们都会经历大致一样的认知衰退轨迹。

The lefthand graphs show decline of cognitive function, while righthand graphs show the variability.At least according to this study, variablility doesn’t show dramatic increases with age.
左边的图显示认知功能的衰退，右边的图显示不同人之间的差异。至少从这个研究来说，差异没有随年龄增长表现出明显的增加。

Another review, in contrast, seems to differ.The authors argue that variance increases with age, which goes with our normal intuition that some people seem to experience large declines in thinking with time while others fair much better.This seems to match up with other evidence that most factors associated with aging experience increasing variability over time.
相反，这篇评述似乎得出不同的结论。作者认为，人与人之间的认知差异随年龄增长也在增加，这符合我们一般的直观感受，即有些人似乎随时间流逝思维大幅减退，而另一些人却好得多。这似乎也与其他证据相印证，即与年龄有关的大多方面，都随时间表现出更大的差异性。

Redundancy and Cognitive Decline
冗余和认知衰退

One reason for the observation that some people seem to age mostly with minds intact and others notice dramatic slowdowns may be that the brain has a lot of redundncy built in .On a physical level, brain volume may be declining, but that this may not create noticeable difficulties for some time.
我们看到有些人的头脑几乎不受年龄增长的影响，而另一些人却表现出明显的衰退，原因之一可能是大脑本身有许多冗余。在生理层面上，大脑容量或许在减小，但在一段时间内不会产生明显可见的认知困难。

Cognitive reserve is the concept used by researchers to note that many individuals who experience decline on physical measures may not have related mental decline owing to this robustness.
研究人员用认知储备这个概念来解释，正是因为这些冗余，许多根据物理测量大脑已经出现衰退的人，却没有表现出相应的思维退化。

One way you can see this is in fMRlscans which show that older individualsfrontal cortices are more aetive thanyounger people’s on comparable tasks.Since frontal cortex decline is commonin aging, what might be happening isthat the brain is compensating forreduced effciency by increasingactivation.
你可以通过fMRI扫描观察到这一现象。面对同等的任务，老年人的额皮质比年轻人的更活跃。由于额皮质通常随年龄增加而减少，因此可能发生的就是，大脑通过增加活跃度来弥补功效的降低

Researchers note that education seemsto have a protective effeet on aging. Thismay be because accumulatedknowledge from education contributesto cognitive reserve, so as our mindsdecline, those who learned more whenthey were younger are better able tocope. Of course, another explanationmight also be that those with sharper.minds were more likely to go to school,and that education has no causal effeet
研究人员发现，教育似乎对衰老有保护作用。这或许是因为教育累积的知识增加了认知储备，因此当思维退化时，那些年轻时学得更多的人就能更好地应对。当然，另一种解释也可能是那些头脑敏捷的人更有可能去上学，因此教育并不是原因。

There is some evidence that someaspects of cognitive aging can beovereome with training. However, Iwouldn’t hold my breath for a magic fix.Age impacts our minds just as it doesour bodies, Just as there is no exerciseregimen that will allow aseptuagenarian to compete in theOlympics, I doubt there are universalremedies for our cognitive declines.
有证据表明，认知衰老的有些方面可以通过训练得到克服。然而，我可不会屏息期待什么神奇的办法。 衰老就像影响我们的身体一样影响我们的思维。正如没有哪种锻炼之道能让耄耋老人参加奥运会，我也不认为对于认知衰退存在普遍可行的补救办法。

However, the situation doesn’t seem tobe completely without hope either.There do seem to be some things youcan do to help your menta! functioning
然而，事情似乎也并非全然没有希望。你确实可以做些事情帮助头脑运转。

The frst is preventing cognitive decline.Exercise and eat well when you’reyounger. Learning more when you’reyounger may minimize cognitivedecline. Even if learning doesn’t preventdeclines in fuid intelligence, it stillenhances crystallized intelligence,giving you greater knowledge in yourolder years.r
首先是预防认知衰退。在年轻时坚持锻炼、健康饮食。年轻时多学习可以尽可能减少认知衰退。即使学习无法阻止流体智力的衰退，它也能提高晶体智力，使你在年老时拥有更多知识。

The second is to strategically contro!your environment to minimize thespecific difficulties associated withaging. In particular you should:
第二个办法是战略性地控制所处的环境，从而减少与衰老有关的具体困难。具体来说，你应该:

Avoid multitasking or environmentswith likely distractors. Since goalmaintenance seems to be a centralproblem of aging, it means the older yoare the more you benefit from anenvironment that allows your mind tofocus on the problem at hand. r
1避免多任务工作，或处于可能让你分心的环境中。由于记住目标似乎是衰老会遇到的一个核心问题，这意味着年龄越大，待在能够让你专注于手上任务的环境中就越有帮助。

Be more strategic with creating eues andreminders for important information.Proactive memory, where you set theintention to recal! something later, givena specific prompt, is particularlyaffected by aging. This suggestsengineering your environment toremind you of your goals and tasks ismore important as one ages. r
2 更有策略性地为重要信息创建线索和提示。前摄记忆指的是，预先计划之后看到特定的提示要回想起某件事。它尤其受到衰老的影响。这就意味着，设计你所处的环境，使之能够提醒你目标和要做的任务，随着年龄增长变得更加重要。

Be more explicit in organizing what youwant to learn. Binding pieces ofinformation together to be recalled as asingle chunk can happen bothautomatically and deliberately. Sincebinding is harder with age, it may makemore sense to be deliberate aboutorganizing information you want tolearn.r
3 更加明确地组织你想要学习的内容。把不同信息勾连起来，使它们作为一块内容一起被回忆起来，既可以自动发生，也可以有意地促成。由于勾连信息随年龄增长变得困难，就更应该仔细组织想要学习的信息。

A third idea relates to how you mightallocate your learning throughout yourentire lifetime. Since fluid intelligenceand complex working memory peak inearly adulthood, this suggests that timemight be the best for learning skillswhere those are more important, suchas mathematics.
第三个办法涉及你在一生中应该如何分配学习时间。由于流体智力和复杂的工作记忆都在成年早期达到巅峰，这就意味着那段时间是学习重要技能的最佳时期，例如数学。

In contrast, for subjects that requiremostly accumulated knowledge andbuild off of past habits of thinking, agemay be an asset rather than a liability.History and law, for instance, maybenefit more from this accumulatedwisdom and be more amenable toimprovements later in life. r
相反，有些科目需要更多知识积累，依托过去的习惯和思考，年龄对于学习它们就是财富而不是负担。例如，历史和法学就更得益于累积的智慧，在年纪大些时更容易取得进步。

The idea that our minds change as weage, and thus change the relative ease oflearning certain subjects shouldn’t beviewed fatalistically, Obviously, learninghistory when you’re fifteen or calculuswhen you’re fifty are both great. Butunderstanding how age selectivelyimpacts cognition can also help us tominimize the downsides of decline.
我们的头脑随年龄增加发生改变，因此改变了学习特定科目的相对容易程度，但不应该把这看成注定的。显然，十五岁时学习历史，五十岁时学习微积分，都是很棒的。但理解年龄如何有选择性地影响认知能力，也有助于我们减少认知衰退的负面作用。