Improving Healthy Adults' Reasoning Performance

Improving Healthy Adults' Reasoning Performance

Introduction

Cognitive ability may be defined as the way in which a person gives meaning to the world around him and the way in which a person acts. In other words, cognitive ability may be understood as a collection of processes, abilities and skills that work together to make humans act in a certain way. The words cognition and reasoning are related to brain. The tasks performed by the human mind can be simple as well as complex. The ability of the brain to learn, memories, solve problems and send messages to the rest of the body is dependent on the cognitive ability of the person. While this may be very strong in one person, it can also be weak in the other.

Most adults who are above the age of sixty five have been found to have concentration problems as well as memory loss and lack of problem solving skills, even when they are otherwise physically healthy and independent. Alzheimer's is another major problem in healthy older adults. In other words, these adults are not cognitively healthy. The cognitive tasks are performed slow in pace with age. Research has revealed that cognitive training can help resolve most of the problems. The paper discusses from a cognitive point of view, what can be done to improve the reasoning performance of healthy older adults.

Discussion

The processing of information becomes slow with age. The brain must be understood as the single most important part of the machine, like the motor engine in a car or a compressor in a refrigerator. If this part is not working properly, then the machine will not be able to work properly either. In addition, like machines wither with time, the brain too becomes slow with time. The mind is one of the organs in the human body that never stops working. Our eyes are working constantlybut they stop their labor when a person is sleeping. However, the brain continues to work even when the person is sleeping. Hence, after years and years of continuous labor, it gets slow.

Research in the field of psychology suggests that there are three ways the thinking ability and the ability to reason in older adults can be improved. These are reasoning training, speed training also known as processing training and memory training. There are a range of tasks that the older healthy adults are well able to perform on relative basis post training. However, research does not strongly advocate whether cognitive training can help Alzheimer's in older adults.

There are two methods of training; one is the single domain training strategy while the other is the multiple domain training strategy. In the single domain training strategy, a single method is used to address a single problem of cognitive performance. On the other hand, in the multiple domain training strategy, two or more methods may be used to address two or more problems such as memory loss, lack of ability to solve problems, and lack ...