SCIENCE IN THE NEWS DAILY

Study Finds Distractions Blunt Memory with Age

from the San Francisco Chronicle

Brain scans of older people in a noisy lab machine give biological backing to the idea that distraction hampers memory with aging, researchers reported Wednesday.

The finding bolsters a theory about one reason why memory weakens with age: Older people have more trouble remembering some things because they're more easily distracted when they try to learn them.

The memory exercise reported in the latest issue of the Journal of Neuroscience dealt with recognizing faces, but the findings apply to the more general task of trying to remember something a person sees or hears, said lead author Dale Stevens.