⏱️ Processing Speed Decline
With age, cognitive processing decelerates, that is why the time consumption for encoding and retrieving information increases. Consequently, the speed of the information flow has an impact on the abilities for immediate recall and quick decision-making.
🧠 Working Memory Reduction
The decline of working memory due to age-related alterations, thereby, one cannot process and change several pieces of information at once, during complex cognitive tasks, with ease anymore.
🔍 Episodic Memory Changes
Aging makes you forget specific personal events and their context. An older adult may not only have the problem of remembering the time and the place of the occurrence of a particular event but also have the problem of recognizing the event itself.
✅ Preserved Semantic Memory
The memory of the general knowledge, vocabulary, and learned facts does not largely decline with aging. Crystallized intelligence and accumulated wisdom more often than not keep on improving with experience.
🎯 Attention and Focus Issues
It is harder to keep a large amount of one’s attention on a single thing or person while having the ability to ignore others. The tasks that require distribution of attention are particularly difficult and have a negative effect on one's ability to multitask and on information encoding.
🔄 Reduced Neuroplasticity
The brain’s ability to create new neural connections steadily diminishes with the passage of years. This, in turn, affects the learning of new skills and the adaptation to the novel information pattern.
💪 Compensatory Mechanisms
Aged people resort to tactical methods based on their experience and knowledge to counteract the cognitive changes. The use of external aids and metacognitive strategies, when effective, helps to lessen the decline.