Mental Exercise and Mental Aging the Validity of the ''Use It or Lose It'' Hypothesis

It is widely believed that keeping mentally ac- tive will prevent age-related mental decline. The primary prediction of this mental-exercise hypothesis is that the rate of age-related decline in measures of cognitive func- tioning will be less pronounced for people who are more mentally active, or, equivalently, that the cognitive dif- ferences among people who vary in level of mental activity willbegreaterwithincreasedage.Althoughmanytraining studies, and comparisons involving experts, people in specific occupations, and people whose mental activity levels are determined by their self-reports, have found a positive relation between level of activity and level of cognitive functioning, very few studies have found an in- teractive effect of age and mental activity on measures of cognitivefunctioning.Despitethecurrentlackofempirical evidence for the idea that the rate of mental aging is moderated by amount of mental activity, there may be personal benefits to assuming that the mental-exercise hypothesis is true.

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