Paul Baltes and his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Neurological Research in Berlin further supported the value of education. They examined compensatory strategies people employ as they grow older. The Berlin group distinguished between two types of mental activity:
(1) the biologically shaped hardware of the mind, which operates the speed and accuracy of memory, sensory input, ability to make distinctions and comparisons, and ability to put things into categories (also termed cognitive mechanics), and
(2) the software of the mind, more a product of culture, upbringing, and environment, including reading and writing skills, self-knowledge, and coping skills (which Baltes calls cognitive pragmatics).
Baltes and his associates found that although older persons’ memory capacity would increase if they participated in memory training techniques, they would still not reach the level of younger persons who received the same training. They concluded that the hardware of the mind does show a decline with age. But when it came to real-life problem-solving tests – for example, counseling a threatened suicide or advising a 15-year-old girl who wants to get married – they found no major differences among those 30–70 years of age. In fact, those above age 60 were as likely to rank among the top 20% of skilled ‘wisdom performers’ as younger adults.
The Berlin researchers coined the infamous phrase selective optimization with compensation, to describe how older people offset slowing down in some areas of cognitive and physical skill. He cites the example of Arthur Rubinstein, the famous pianist, who concertized well into his later years. Asked how he managed to sustain his career so successfully, Rubinstein commented that he limited his repertoire to fewer pieces (selection), practiced longer (optimization), and played slow movement slower so that faster movements sounded comparatively faster (compensation).
Similar examples abound in literature and film about aging competitive athletes who learn to use brain as well as brawn. They draw on hard-earned experience to strategize and outfox their opponents, reserving their strength for exactly the right moment, rather than relying on endurance and speed. Similarly, many people develop tools and learning strategies such as mnemonics (memory techniques) to aid in their acquisition and retention of information.
