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If you feel like your thinking has been getting a bit foggier as you've gotten older —
如果你觉得随着年龄的增长，思维变得越来越模糊——
like you're just... slowing down… you're not alone.
比如思维变慢，并不是只有你有这种情况。
This happens eventually to nearly everybody.
几乎所有人都会遇见这种情况。
But researchers have been looking into exactly how minds change as people age,
但研究人员一直在研究：随着年龄的增长，究竟人们的思想是如何变化的。
and they've got a few ideas as to how to slow those changes down a bit.
他们有一些关于如何放慢这些变化的想法。
As you get older, your brain — like your hair — tends to thin.
随着年龄的增长，大脑——就像头发一样——往往会变薄。
The average person's brain loses volume at a rate of about 5% per decade after age 40 —
40岁以后，人的大脑平均每十年以5%的速度萎缩——
it seems like neurons just get old and die —
似乎神经细胞在衰老和死亡——
and researchers think this may explain why people's thinking also gets slower and fuzzier as they get older.
研究人员认为，这也许可以解释为什么随着年龄的增长，人的思维会变得更慢、更模糊。
But there's actually some debate about how bad the normal decline in brain functioning with age really is.
但实际上，随着年龄的增长，大脑功能的正常衰退到底有多严重是有争议的。
And newer research suggests it might not be as bad as we first thought.
最新研究表明，情况可能没有我们最初想的那么糟。
The easiest way to ask this question is to just give a variety of different memory and intelligence tests to adults of varying ages.
解决这一问题最简单的方法是，对不同年龄的成年人进行各种不同的记忆和智力测试。
And when researchers do that, they see a pretty clear pattern emerge, though it does depend on what kind of tests you use.
当研究人员测试的时候，出现了一个非常清晰的模式，不过这取决于用的是哪种测试。
The story doesn't look good for things like speed of reasoning and perception, pattern recognition, and short term memory for words said aloud.
从推理和感知的速度、模式识别以及对大声说出单词的短期记忆等方面来看，结果并不理想。
And these declines don't just happen when you're in your 80s.
这些下降不仅仅出现在你80多岁的时候。
People in their late 30s score significantly lower than people in their 20s.
30多岁的人得分明显低于20多岁的人。
Yeah, really looking forward to that.
是的，非常期待。
But the story is very different when participants are given a vocabulary test, or asked to do crosswords.
但当参与者被要求进行词汇测试或填字游戏时，情况就大不相同了。
In those, scores improve with age and hold steady even as other abilities decline later in life.
测试分数会随着年龄的增长而提高，并且保持稳定，即使其他能力在以后的生活中衰退。
Psychologists think that's because vocabulary is a kind of crystallized intelligence, or knowledge that's the product of thinking and learning over the years.
心理学家认为这是因为词汇是一种晶态智力，或者知识是多年思考和学习的产物。
Other kinds of crystalized intelligence likely follow a similar pattern.
其他晶体智力可能遵循类似的模式。
For example, older chess players pick moves just as well as younger players, despite differences in their abilities to remember patterns on the chess board.
例如，年纪大的棋手和年纪小的棋手棋路一样好，尽管他们记住棋盘上图形的能力有所不同。
But crystallized intelligence varies a lot from person to person based on life experience and expertise, so it's harder to test different aspects of it across big populations.
但是基于生活经验和专业知识，晶态智力差别很大，所以在大人群中测试智力的不同方面就比较困难了。
Most of the tests where age-related declines are seen, though, fall into the category of fluid intelligence —
虽然这些测试与年龄的相关性在下降，但是大多数测试都属于流动智力的范畴，
things that help you think on your feet to process new information.
流动智力指的是帮助你独立思考处理新信息的方法。
So psychologists generally think that for those without Alzheimer's or other kinds of dementia, growing old means losing some fluid intelligence while keeping crystallized knowledge.
因此，心理学家通常认为，对于那些没有阿尔茨海默氏症或其他类型痴呆症的人来说，变老意味着在保持固定知识的同时失去一些流动智力。
You might forget where you put your keys, but you still know what your keys are for.
你可能忘记把钥匙放在哪儿了，但你仍然知道钥匙是干什么用的。
And there are areas that might improve with age — like social reasoning: the ability to infer other people's feelings and intentions.
还有一些东西可能会随着年龄的增长而改善——比如社会推理：推断他人感受和意图的能力。
When researchers presented people with stories of social conflicts and asked how they'd unfold,
当研究人员向人们讲述社会冲突的故事并询问他们如何展开时，
they found that the older participants were more likely to employ complex reasoning, emphasize multiple people's perspectives and allow for compromise.
他们发现，年长的参与者更有可能进行复杂的推理，强调不同人的观点，并且允许妥协。
So it's not like everything goes downhill.
所以并不是每件事物都在衰退。
And even the declines usually seen in tests comparing old and young people may not be so guaranteed.
这种通常出现在老年人和年轻人比较测试中的衰退也不一定能够保证。
Some recent research suggests these declines might not appear until later in life — after age 60 or later —
最新研究表明，这种下降可能要到晚年才会出现——60岁以后或更晚
or that some fluid abilities can be retained or even improved.
或者一些流动智力可以被保留或者甚至提高。
These studies have looked at cognitive abilities longitudinally, meaning measuring the same people over time.
这些研究对认知能力进行了纵向研究，测量这些人随着时间推移的变化。
This can avoid the problem of mistaking a generational difference for an age-related difference.
这可以避免将代际差异误认为与年龄有关。
But, people often drop out, and that may mean those who suffer more problems don't stay in the study long enough to be included in the oldest age groups, skewing the results.
但是，人们经常退出，这可能意味着那些遭受更多问题的人在研究中停留的时间不够长，无法被纳入最高龄人群，从而歪曲了研究结果。
And even if there's less decline than we thought, there are still some things that just seem to go as you get older,
即使下降比我们想象的要少，但随着年龄的增长，还是会有一些事情发生，
which a lot of people probably wish didn't.
很多人可能不希望这样的事情发生。
Unfortunately, so far, there doesn't seem to be a way to turn back the clock.
不幸的是，到目前为止，似乎没有办法让时光倒流。
But there are some things that can slow down age-related declines, or at least delay them.
但是有一些东西可以减缓与年龄有关的衰老，或者至少延缓衰老。
A long-standing recommendation has been use it or lose it; — basically, that you should practice with the skills you want to maintain—
长期以来的建议是要么使用，要么失去，基本上来说，你应该用你想要保持的技能来练习——
and there's some research to support that idea.
有一些研究支持这一观点。
A good example is a 1992 study that took 35 subjects over a year and gave them a total of 38 training and practice sessions in a memory technique called the method of loci.
一个很好的例子是1992年的一项研究，该研究在一年多的时间里研究了35个课题，总共训练38次练习一种叫做轨迹法的记忆技巧。
The results were optimistic: the older adults didn't show the declines in working memory that were typical for their age group.
结果是乐观的：老年人的工作记忆并没有像他们这个年龄段的人那样下降。
But, unfortunately, it didn't really improve things either — no matter what, the younger participants always did better.
但是，不幸的是，也没有真正改善什么——不管怎样，年轻的参与者总是做得更好。
Other studies similarly suggest that regular practice can delay declines, but can't really reverse them.
其他研究也同样表明，有规律的锻炼可以延缓衰退，但并不能真正逆转衰退。
Plus, the benefits are really only for the exact thing you're practicing.
另外，这些好处只适用于你正在练习的东西。
Research shows that regular training on specific cognitive abilities like memory or processing speed really only improves that ability —
研究表明，定期训练特定的认知能力，比如记忆或处理速度，只会提高这种能力——
it doesn't help others or improve cognition overall.
它不能帮助别人，也不能全面提高认知能力。
In fact, if you want to more generally keep your mind sharp, studies suggest being active in other ways could be a bigger help than specific mental exercises.
事实上，研究表明，一般来说，如果你想保持思维敏捷，在其他方面保持活跃可能比特定的脑力锻炼更有帮助。
Longitudinal studies of cognitive skills in older adults show that things like social engagement and aerobic exercise have a strong relationship with maintaining function.
对老年人认知技能的纵向研究表明，社会参与和有氧运动等活动与保障功能有很大的关系。
And a meta-analysis done in 2003 found that across the board, exercise improved cognitive abilities compared to control groups.
2003年的一项研究分析发现，与对照组相比，锻炼能全面提高认知能力。
But not all skills improved equally.
但并非所有技能都得到了同等的提高。
Like, exercise groups did a lot better on executive function tasks — but only a little bit better on processing speed.
比如，运动组在执行功能任务上好很多，但在处理速度上好一点点。
Whether we'll ever be able to reverse age-related declines and give 80 year olds the sharpness of 20 year olds remains to be seen.
我们是否能够逆转与年龄有关的衰退，让80岁的人拥有20岁人的敏锐，还有待观察。
But in the meantime, it seems like going out and having some fun exercising with friends helps a little more than staying home with crosswords.
但与此同时，似乎出去和朋友们一起做一些有趣的运动比在家玩填字游戏更有帮助。
And hey — if you go out during the day and do that crossword over breakfast or before bed, you can have the best of both worlds!
嘿，如果你白天出去，在早餐或睡觉前玩填字游戏，可以两全其美！
Thanks for watching this episode of SciShow Psych!
感谢收看本期心理科学秀！
And thanks especially to our patrons on Patreon.
特别感谢Patreon对本节目的支持。
It takes a lot of people behind the scenes to make every video we put out, and we wouldn't be able to have those people if it weren't for the support of our patrons.
我们制作每一个视频都需要很多幕后人员，如果没有赞助商的支持，我们不可能实现。
If you want to join our community of supporters on Patreon and help us keep making free, educational psychology videos, you can head over to Patreon.
如果你想加入我们在Patreon上的支持者社区，并帮助我们继续制作免费的教育心理学视频，可以前往Patreon。
