The Aging Mind: An Owner's Manual

Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1: Talking about old age
PART I: What is aging?
	Chapter 2: Why and how do we age?
		Why we could not live for ever
		Not all for each but each for all
		High costs of sex
		Some advantages of reproducing later in life
		Advantages of married life
		Why women live longer
		Notes
		References
	Chapter 3: How fast do we change?
		Collecting evidence
		The past is another country where things were very different
		Geographical differences
		Tracking individual lives
		Time from our beginning and from our end
		Clever genes and long-life genes
		Does it all go together when it goes?
		Notes
		References
	Chapter 4: How well do we understand what is happening to us?
		Asking people about their everyday competence
		Feeling low and scoring low
		Judging how well we are and how long we will survive
		What do we compare our health against?
		How can we assess ourselves more accurately?
		Notes
		References
	Chapter 5: Biological signs of brain aging
		The falling years
		Seeing and hearing our futures
		Working out the exact amounts by which age affects intelligence, vision and balance
		Measuring and using gross changes in the brain
		Notes
		References
PART II: Memory
	Chapter 6: What is memory for?
		How working memory works
		Notes
		References
	Chapter 7: Remembering and planning to do things
		Looking for things
		Unconscious awareness of plans
		References
	Chapter 8: Who said that?
		Linking sources to content
		Forgetting to whom you told your story
		References
	Chapter 9: Losing and finding words and names
		The natural history of TOTs
		I’ll never forget what’s-his-name
		Naming faces
		Words in the brain
		Note
		References
	Chapter 10: Remembering the beginnings of our lives
		Blight out of mind?
		Language and early memories
		Do our earliest memories alter as we age?
		How our early memories construct our life stories
		References
	Chapter 11: Remembering the rest of our lives
		Which parts of our lives do we remember best?
		Flashbulb memories
		Remembering what we have learned
		References
PART III: Senses
	Chapter 12: Seeing
		Our best guesses about reality
		A look at the eye
		Notes
		References
	Chapter 13: Hearing
		The ear
		Hearing where things are
		Particular hearing losses
		Obvious and less obvious problems of being deaf
		Note
		References
	Chapter 14: Taste and smell
		Note
		References
	Chapter 15: Fumbling and stumbling
		Notes
		References
PART IV: Intelligence, skills and wisdom
	Chapter 16: General smarts
		What do intelligence tests measure?
		Testing times
		References
	Chapter 17: Keeping the skills we have learned
		But what about “the wisdom of old age”?
		What is wisdom?
		Notes
		References
	Chapter 18: Reading others’ minds
		Dialects of the face
		Recognising faces and expressions as we grow old
		When faces, voices and bodies give different messages
		What goes on in the brain when we recognise non-verbal cues?
		Accentuating the positive
		Back to the brain again
		Our inner others: modelling minds
		References
PART V: Living with aging
	Chapter 19: Those old blues: depression and anxiety
		Various shades of blues
		The final stress
		References
	Chapter 20: The speed of thought
		Note
		References
	Chapter 21: Paying attention
		Preparing
		Staying prepared
		Staying prepared
		Notes
		References
	Chapter 22: Good times and bad times
		Variability from moment to moment
		Variability from day to day
		Regular changes during each day
		Notes
		References
	Chapter 23: Sleep
		Daily rhythms
		Larks and owls
		Is poor sleep a warning signal?
		In our sleep what dreams may come?
		Note
		References
	Chapter 24: Time passing
		Judging very short periods of time
		Hour glasses of our lives
		Memories of past times
		Time at the magic mountain
		How long ago was that?
		Mind maps of space and time
		Notes
		References
PART VI: Aging well
	Chapter 25: What can we do about all this?
		Things that help to keep our wits
		Training can change the brain
		Brain-training programmes
		Some disagreements between results
		Memory improvement systems
		Why we can, and should, literally, take heart
		References
Index