Absentmindedness: A Middle Aged Problem

There had always been a constant source of aggravation between the sexes about how can men so easily forget anniversaries, birthdays or as a matter of fact- any important date.Research shows that this tendency is not because men are not bothered to be remembered, but it is because during middle-age, absentmindedness is more a male problem!

A report from the Institute of Education, University of London suggests that at the age of 50, a woman’s verbal memory is superior to their male counterparts. This result came up after a survey of more than 9000 middle aged British men and women which showed women scoring higher in listening and recollection tests.

According to the authors Matthew Brown and Brian Dodgeon-

“This was quite a surprising result, since women turning 50 tend to do worse: another study has shown that during the menopause women do not do so well.”

The participants were subjected to four tests in which the first test involved listening to 10 common words being read out and recalling out as many as possible in two minutes. The second test required them to list the same 10 words after five minutes. In both these tests, women scored better than men by an average of 5%-8%.

The third test involved crossing out as many P’s and ‘W’s from a page filled with random letters. Women were less accurate in this test compared to men, but scanned the page faster than men. The final test required participants to name as many animals as they could in one minute and both men and women could name an average 22 animals in the given time.

The tested participants were members of the National Child Development Study who have been tracked since their birth in 1958. They were tested when they were 16 and now the latest tests conducted will help predict the impact of health, diet, exercise, smoking, alcohol and depression on their mental abilities. The initial test result analysis shows that participants did better on all tests who exercised regularly at least once a month compared to those who did not. Similarly, non-smokers outperformed smokers in one of the ‘word recall’ test.

The authors said-