At what age will your mental abilities peak?

At what age will your mental abilities peak?

Well, it’s not 24. 

The notion has persisted for generations – that the human brain’s cognitive abilities peak in the early 20s and then begin a slow march downhill. 

Look around. Think about musicians, salesmen, actors, lawyers, engineers, painters, directors, sculptors, psychologists and novelists. When do their skills peak? To what degree does experience factor into the equation?

A new study out of New England – focused exclusively on cognitive abilities – stands ready to up-end the long-held notions that young is, by definition, better. Study authors Joshua Hartshorne and Laura Germine found that, when it comes to thinking, there’s no magic age.  In fact, some skills (e.g., vocabulary recognition) don’t peak in humans until age 65 or 70.

Here’s a quick-look summary of their findings, drawn from nearly 50,000 online participants (note: Hartshorne is with MIT, Germine is a research associate in Harvard’s Psychology Dept. and a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard-affiliated MGH):

·        Ability to recognize and remember faces – this ability peaks between ages 30 and 34;

·        Mental processing speed – as one might expect, this skill peaks around age 18 or 19;

·        Social cognition (the ability to detect other people’s emotions) – peaks in the 40s to age 50, with no notable decline until after age 60; 

·        Short-term memory – peaks around age 25, levels off for several years, then begins to drop at age 35;

·        Crystalized intelligence (measured as vocabulary skills) rises as one ages, not peaking until about age 65 to 70.

Randy Dotinga, journalist and President of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, identified some weaknesses in the study. Writing for healthday.com, Dotinga noted that it’s not a longitudinal study but instead is based on a single point in time. Dotinga also pointed out that the study only included people who are Internet-savvy (although, the author acknowledges, the researchers did analyze statistics from studies that were not online). 

Nonetheless, the fundamental message is unassailable: human brains are not simple machines which, as they age, begin to deteriorate. Instead, brain plasticity is at work, throughout the life span. Noted a study summary at www.psychologicalscience.org: “It’s not yet clear why these skills tend to peak at different ages, but previous research suggests that it may have to do with changes in gene expression or brain structure as we age.”

When does creativity peak?

Dean Simonton, psychologist and UC Davis professor, has studied the phenomenon of creativity for nearly 40 years, and he explains that “research has consistently found that creativity is a curvilinear (inverted backward) function of age – meaning that older individuals would not be creative. However, the empirical and theoretical literature shows that such a pessimistic conclusion is unjustified. Numerous factors operate that help maintain creative output throughout the life span. Indeed, it is actually possible for creators to display a qualitative and quantitative resurgence of creativity in their final years.” Simonton goes on to note that a range of professions – among them poets and painters – have their most productive and prolific years well past what we commonly call “middle age.”

So, when will your mental abilities peak? Well, it’s certainly not 24. 

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