Tag: Aging

Curious David in CarrollLand: Reflections on “Neurobics”

In preparing for a Fall semester research seminar, I am reading a number of books dealing with aging, brain fitness, and maintaining brain health. My preference is to read scholarly works based upon good science. I also tend to trust detailed thought pieces from say, The New York Times (e.g. this one) or this piece from The New Yorker “Mentally Fit: Workouts at the Brain Gym.”

How, though, could I resist the book Keep Your Brain Alive which claimed to have 500,000 copies in print and which promised me opportunities to discover the secrets of “neurobics?”

Katz & Rubin’s (2014) Keep Your Brain Alive: 83 Neurobic Exercises to Help Prevent Memory Loss & Increase Mental Fitness was fun to read. The authors are witty, playful, and creative. Chapter 2 gives an accurate, very elementary explanation of “how the brain works.” The research they cite, however,  is “classic” and outdated. Their “Neurobics” concept (“experience novel and unexpected things and enlist the aid of all of your senses”) is common sensical but there is no body of research supporting the efficacy of the exercises. Save your money and get the gist of their ideas by visiting their web page here.

Curious David Redux : Food for Thought

I am over 50 years of age though when with my students I forget and am closer to their age:) I am very impressed by recently released Global Council on Brain Health reports dealing with brain health for adults ages 50 and older. Among those I have so far read are those dealing with nutrition (found here), social engagement (found here), sleep (found here), physical activity (found here), and cognitively stimulating activities (found here).

That most recent detailed report draws upon the expertise of thirteen specialists from four continents and from gerontology, neuropsychology, neurology, neuroscience, psychology, public health and speech-language pathology who met and agreed upon ten best-science-based consensus statements summarizing the impact of cognitively stimulating activities on brain health. The report’s appendices list the participants, provide a glossary with carefully defined terms, share the discussion questions framing the deliberations, clearly explain differences, reveal disclosure statements of potential conflicts of interests, indicate sources of funding, and provide selected references. I find these reports understandable, well-written, full of practical and actionable advice, myth-busting and extremely important. Definitely enriching food for thought.

Curious David Redux: Reflections on Aging

When I was a graduate student, I would religiously read every article in every journal to which I subscribed. Alas, I have fallen out of that good habit.  Perhaps I need to finish reading Charles Duhigg’s books like this one here.

One of my resolutions as I wind up (and wind down!) my teaching career has been to invest more time in reading the scholarly journals to which I subscribe and weaving the knowledge both into my teaching or my life. My research interests across the years have been wide-ranging (impression formation, subliminal perception, the Mozart effect, effects of color on behavior, internet learning tools) no doubt in part due to my Oberlin College liberal arts education. My current research interests now are focused on aging, maintaining brain health, brain fitness training, truth in advertising, and memory —- no doubt because I am older as is evidenced in the photos above!

As I prepare for a research-oriented semester (two sections of Statistics and Experimental Design) and a Research Seminar, an article in the December 2013 issue of Psychological Science intrigued me because of the simplicity of the experimental design and of the data analyses and because of the importance of the results (if replicable). In an article (found here) entitled “Aging 5 Years in 5 Minutes: The Effect of Taking a Memory Test on Older Adults’ Subjective Age” Hughes et al. experimentally demonstrated that older (but not younger) adults felt subjectively older after taking (or even after expecting to take) a standard neurological screening test which dealt with memory! Tremendous implications here for future research on the effects of context on self-perceptions of aging.

I’m doing a lot of reading in preparation for my Fall 2018 courses. Among the books I am carefully reading are:

  1. The Sharpbrains Guide to Brain Fitness (2013). I found the virtual conference that I attended last year of tremendous value (more about it can be found here or in some of my earlier blogs). I look forward to reading the 3rd revised edition when it becomes available. Author Alvaro Fernandez informs me that it might be available in three to four months.
  2. Happiness is a Choice: You Make (2018): Lessons from a Year Among the Oldest Old by John Leland.
  3. The End of Old Age: Living a Longer More Purposeful Life (2018) by Marc E. Agronin. An interview with the author can be found here.
  4. Two Weeks to a Younger Brain (2016) by Gary Small.
  5. Everything written by Carroll alumna Dr. Michelle Braun who kindly met with my research students for an hour last year to share her insights about brain health. Much of her good work can be found here.

What other books should I carefully examine?

 

Carroll Moments…

Tonight I’ll finish reading Meg Wolitzer’s novel The Interestings. I teased my student assistants recently that I’d love to follow the trajectory of their lives over the next thirty years as Meg Wolitzer does her characters.In some ways I have been able to do that for past students, by comparing where they are now (as conveyed to me by Facebook, Linkedin, and campus visits) with the information I have kept in their advising folders—photos, letters, occasionally even a paper they wrote. Recently I was reunited with a former student (selfie available upon request) whose daughter might well be enrolling this year and might even be assigned to work with me. So many memories triggered by the Carroll chimes, familiar places, and familiar faces. Do feel free to share your Carroll Moments with me…
Below are some photos from a number of years ago. Precious Carroll moments which evoke a number of stories about you!
 
Alumni1 Alumni2 Alumni3 Alumni4
 

Reading, Writing, and Watching User Manuals

whetting-my--app-etite----too-many-apps

Maybe it is my aging. Maybe it is a lack of motivation. Maybe it is a lack of focus on my part. Gone are the times when I used to master a new piece of software or a new computer in a few hours—exploring every drop down menu. Gone is my ability (or the time needed) to write a succinct user’s guide for the new machine and feel comfortable being a resident expert of its capabilities. Ah, my TRS 80 Level I machine—sometimes I miss you!

Fortunately now there are increasingly available excellent screencasts which clearly explain features of software. I find of special value MacMost Videos, Screencastsonline.com, and the superb presentations by David Sparks. When I am producing my own screencast I find most useful Screenflow though I am becoming impressed with Clarify‘s didactic potential.

Just downloaded the new OSX Yosemite Operating System onto one of my Mac’s. I find that it is worth the investment to purchase online tutorials that hand-hold one through the different features. I’ll have my undergraduate research assistants go through them before we install it on one of my office machines. In the interim I need to cycle through all my apps and see which ones work with the new OS, which don’t but are essential for my needs, and which ones I no longer need or have totally forgotten



“I’m not sure if you will remember me, but …”

The letter was posted out of state on April 29, 2014. It appeared in my campus mail box a few days later. I glanced at the hand-written envelope (too) quickly, guessed that it might be a (sigh, yet another) solicitation for a letter of recommendation, and didn’t have a chance to open it until the following Saturday while I was proctoring my first final exam.

Dr. Simpson,

     I hope that this letter finds you in good health and spirit. I’m not sure if you’ll remember me, but you did something for me that I’ve never forgotten.

The letter-writer (a former academic advisee and not the academically strongest of students) had graduated three years after I had been diagnosed and treated for prostate cancer. Therefore, he might have been aware of some of my health issues while he was a student here.  Alas, he’s right that I am not as good at remembering students as I once was. I suspect that some of that memory failure is age-related; some is caused, I think, by how Carroll has changed. Some by the sheer number of students I have taught in the past 36 years. And though I had no immediate recollection of the particular event he shared, nonetheless I recalled him in some detail even without going to my filing cabinet and pulling out his advisee folder.

In 2004 ,,, I called the College to inquire about online classes. The adviser I spoke with told me that you changed one of my grades allowing me to graduate. You gave me my life and I can never begin to thank you enough. … I never contacted you because I was embarrassed, but always so thankful for it….[B]ecause of what you did I have been able to get my Masters… and have the current job I hold.  I am about to leave for Afghanistan … And just want you to know that I have never forgotten what you did for me and have always tried to earn it and will continue to. Thank you so much. Respectfully,

I have only a vague recollection of the particular circumstance alluded to (but I verified its occurrence).

A student, about to graduate fails a final exam in one of my courses. Were there personal circumstances affecting their performance? Is this part of a pattern? Is there justified reason to give them an additional chance—say, an oral exam?

A student is just a few points away from the next higher grade needed to graduate. This is easier for me to resolve, because of my extensive training in statistics and measurement error I am aware of and sensitive to the imprecision of measurement. I am quite comfortable in this situation under certain circumstances allowing some subjective (human, humane?) factors to enter into my final judgment of the student’s demonstrated abilities and likelihood of future success.

I most assuredly would change a grade if I myself had made a clerical error in assigning a grade. My vague recollection is that the latter was the case in this instance.

Simple acts of kindness, even when unintentional, can have long-lasting effects. This I believe. I was overjoyed to hear from him and communicated my thankfulness for his letter and best wishes for safety while serving our country.

Curious David Redux: What evidence is there that collaborative, engaging, Web tools indeed enhance learning— or Promote or Maintain Brain Health?

As I continue my transition to WordPress.org (and apply Margareta Magnusson’s ideas articulated in The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning to blogs I have written and photographs I have taken), I shall be revisiting some earlier pieces I have written during the last 15 years or so. I’ll title those pieces Curious David Redux.

BruceandDavid

[The photo above is of me, Dad, and younger brother Bruce in Grandma Stover’s back yard. I wonder where sister Connie was? Perhaps with Mom.]

The thought piece below first published on September 2, 2008 is actually a slightly revised blog piece I wrote in May of 2004 under the name “Curious David” when I was a community educational blogger for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. I was attempting to think through the poential of Internet Learning Tools. Today in 2018  I now am thinking through which of these might lend themselves to maintaining or promoting brain health.

I’m nervous and excited. Time to take off my invisibility cloak. Tomorrow (Tuesday, September 2, 2008 at 8:00 a.m.) I meet in person for the first time with my 20 first-year students. What an immense responsibility to be their first professor!

We’re going to explore “21rst century” learning tools such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, social networks, virtual worlds, and YouTube. The idea for this course emerged from my experiences writing this “Curious David” blog column. Last year’s opportunity to write for “JSonline” was transformative for me as I learned from elementary and secondary school teachers, high school students, virtual school advocates, retired faculty and readers about innovations, challenges and successes they faced promoting learning.

In this first-year seminar we shall focus on some of the 25 free learning tools described by educator Jane Hart. [Here is an updated list I would draw upon were I to teach this course again.]  As we examine these learning tools we hope to answer questions such as these:

To what degree can these web tools truly enhance student learning?

To what degree are they just “cool” tools?

Could they be used to develop critical thinking?

Do they improve or degrade communication skills?

Might they be applied to fostering cross-cultural or international understanding?

Might they strengthen or weaken writing skills?

What are their weaknesses or dangers?

Should they complement or replace 20th century learning skills/tools?

How can one evaluate their effectiveness?

[It seems to me it should be possible to produce an evidence-based paper like this to address the questions above.]

 My intent is to assist students in the transition from high school to college—and to investigate Web 2.0 learning tools which might be useful across classes and in the workplace. I want to involve them in educational experiences that will develop and enhance abilities in reading, writing, reflecting, presenting, thinking, and producing. Writing exercises will include short in-class and out-of-class reaction papers, journals, blogs/wikis, and exams. Presentations will be both formal and informal; individual and in small groups. Collaboration will be both with fellow students and with me.

Still Curious,

David

 

Two Simple Studies with Potentially Impactful Results—if Replicated

When I was a graduate student, I would religiously read every article in every journal to which I subscribed. Alas, I have fallen out of that habit. One of my resolutions for the new semester is to invest more time in reading the scholarly journals to which I subscribe—and weaving the knowledge either into my teaching or my life.

As I prepare for a research oriented semester (two sections of Statistics and Experimental Design) and a Research Seminar, two articles in the December 2013 issue of Psychological Science intrigued me because of the simplicity of the experimental design and data analyses and the import of the results (if replicable).

In a short report entitled “Tryptophan Promotes Interpersonal Trust” Colzato et al. exposed 40 healthy adults to either an oral dosage of TRP a food supplement which is an essential amino acid contained in spinach, eggs, soybeans, and fish) or a neutral placebo. After an hour participants interacted in a game designed to measure trust. The participants who had ingested the TRP exhibited behavior indicative of trust to a significantly greater degree than participants who had received the placebo.

In an  equally intriguing group of studies reported in the same journal issue entitled “Aging 5 Years in 5 Minutes: The Effect of Taking a Memory Test on Older Adults’ Subjective Age” Hughes et al. experimentally demonstrated that older (but not younger) adults felt subjectively older after taking (or even after expecting to take) a standard neurological screening test which dealt with memory! Tremendous implications here for future research on the effects of context on self-perceptions of aging.