Last Look

On a recent trip to New York City, I brought along a book of Sudoku puzzles and spent most of the seven-hour train ride filling 9 x 9 square grids with non-repeating numbers. I like the challenge of puzzles. Crosswords, jigsaw puzzles, even playing Spider solitaire on my computer, make me feel like Nancy Drew, sorting out clues that will solve the big mystery. And while I don’t play these games because of it, I’m encouraged by research that supports the notion that such cognitively stimulating activity can help one stay mentally young.

So when my good friend Peter told me about his participation in a study at the University that involved engaging in a variety of puzzle-like exercises as a means of testing one’s mental agility, I was excited. It sounded like a terrific opportunity to advance the cause of science and have fun at the same time.

A part of me was a bit wary, however. Timothy Salthouse's cognitive aging research is attempting to develop an understanding of how human memory declines with age. With two aging parents who often forget that they just asked me that question or told me that bit of news, I’m very aware lately of how tenuous memory can be. I’m especially sensitive too when I find myself groping for the title of the last book I read or the name of my boss’s son. I wasn’t so sure I wanted to know just how close I really am to senility.

During each of three two-hour sessions in which subjects are asked to participate, a young research assistant (RA) led me through a series of brain teasers. As I expected, the spatial relationships tests were the most fun. One exercise was like the instructions for putting together that house cut from the back of the cereal box: fold here, press there, insert tab A into slot B. Another showed an outline and asked me to identify which two-dimensional shape would fill it. A third showed a virtual sheet of paper with a hole punched in one corner and asked me to indicate which option showed what the paper would look like when it was unfolded. Would the holes be in the corners or in the center? On the left or the right?

Other tasks were not quite so easy. In one, Irina the RA read off a list of 12 unrelated nouns: umbrella, steeple, horse, green, desk, summer — and I had to recite them back to her. All of them. Then she told me a story about Stella who went to visit her Aunt Betty in Tulsa, and again I had to repeat it back to her as exactly as possible. This was a challenge.

During my third session, though, I really started to worry. Jennifer, another RA, showed me line drawings of objects, and my job was to identify them. Feather, tree, chair. I’d done this before. There was no mystery here to solve. But she came to an image of an Asian-style building, round, with a layered roofline and ornate carvings. Now I’ve been to Thailand. I’ve visited Buddhist temples like this. I should know what it’s called. But for the life of me, I couldn’t pull the term “pagoda” from the folds of gray matter in my brain.

In the next exercise, she showed me the word “ennui.” Again my brain shut down. I couldn’t find the sounds that came together to make this term. Thank goodness, I thought, this bored college student didn’t ask me to further embarrass myself by defining the term.

Despite my apprehension, my results on these tests showed that I’m fairly normal, cognitively speaking. On the tests for which there are norm references, I’m firmly in the average or slightly above average range for my age. This doesn’t mean I’m not losing my memory, though. As I later learned, Salthouse’s accumulated data from more than six years of testing more than 2,000 subjects shows most people demonstrate definitive cognitive declines in most areas beginning as early as the late 20s.

Although Salthouse sees little scientific evidence in the popular use-it-or-lose-it theory, I like his take on it. The professor suggests that, even if cognitive stimulation doesn’t really work to keep us mentally young, we should act as if it does. It doesn’t hurt anything, he says, it’s fun, and if you can still do it, it means you haven’t lost it yet.

That’s good enough for me.