Perception of Age Impacts Cognitive Performance

Your personal sense of age can have a dramatic (and measurable) impact on your cognitive performance.  At least that is the result of recent research at the University of Exeter on a group of 60-70 year olds.  Members of the group were primed to feel either older or younger, read two articles on the impact of age on cognition  and then given a battery of clinical tests related to mental functioning including a dementia test.  They found participants that viewed themselves as older were five times more likely to receive a dementia diagnosis.  To quote:

“Our research shows that the effect of age perceptions on performance can be dramatic, and that seeing oneself as ‘older’ significantly increases a person’s risk of being diagnosed with dementia on such tests.”

A strong result suggesting that our assumptions about age and how that impacts brain function can dramatically shape cognitive performance.