The weekly newsletter for Fed2 by ibgames

EARTHDATE: July 15, 2007

Official News - page 9


REAL LIFE NEWS: GRUMPY OLD GITS CAN'T HELP IT

by Hazed

If you have ever noticed that people get grumpier as they get older, you are right! Scientists have found that age affects the sense of humor, and that the older you are, the less likely you are to "get" a joke.

The study by Washington University in St Louis tested 40 people aged over 65, along with 40 university students. The participants had to complete jokes and cartoon strips, choosing the correct punchline or final picture from a selection of options. When completing the jokes, undergraduates performed 6% better than old people, and they were 14% better with the cartoon strips.

The technical reason for the difference, according to the report's authors, is to do with age-related declines in short-term memory, abstract reasoning and moving between different thought trains. These may affect the comprehension of humor in older people.

On the other hand, ideas about what constitutes humor changes with the generations, as does the subject matter for jokes - you probably wouldn't be surprised if somebody over 60 failed to understand a joke about MySpace or the iPhone or computer games. So without seeing the jokes and cartoons used in the study, who knows whether it's got any real significance or not?

I can come up with a lot of other possible reasons why old people are grumpy - declining health causing constant aches and pains being just one of them!


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