How does aging change a persons ability to learn and remember?
Learning is the process of acquiring knowledge and skills. Studies of eye blink classical conditioning show that learning ability slows down as people grow older. Memory is the retention or storage of knowledge. Memory includes both short-term memory, quickly committing a phone number to memory, for instance, in order to dial it, and long-term memory, which is the storehouse of past experience. Short-term memory is more dramatically affected by age than long-term memory. 3. What mental disorders are more common among the aged than among the young? Dementias are mental disorders that affect memory, cognitive functioning, and personality. One common form of dementia that is most likely to occur in old age is Alzheimer’s disease. Symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease include memory loss, personality change, and loss of control of bodily functions. Older people are also more prone to strokes than younger people. A stroke can damage speech and language centers in the brain, causing aphasia, which