What age group has the best memory?
(Earl, Rockledge, Florida) A: The basic answer is middle age. But, different kinds of memory abound — from remembering when Kennedy was shot to remembering to remember your next dental appointment. Perhaps the most useful memory is the one closely tied to thinking abilities. It’s called working memory, and allows us to focus on a task (like, paying attention to traffic) when distracted by irrelevant information coming in (a friend’s conversation). Having a good working memory is strongly related to complex thinking tasks, such as, comprehending what we read, solving problems or learning a new language. The age at which our working memory peaks is 45, according to psychologist H. Lee Swanson of University of California, Riverside. After examining 778 people, ranging in age from six to 76, he found working memory got better as children got older, reaching peak level at age 45, then steadily declining. Moreover, the reason working memory declined is, “as we get older, we run out of places
