A recent blog post on the New York Times website considers the research into cognitive performance and aging. In The Older Mind May Just Be a Fuller Mind, Benedict Carey cites some research from Topics in Cognitive Science which may suggest that older minds just have more data so that it takes longer to retrieve the information sought.

It is an interesting suggestion and the applicability to the human situation is uncertain but it should be pursued and meanwhile it makes us older folks (including the Retired Guy) feel better about those senior moments.

Maybe Sherlock and Sir Arthur had it right.

I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.

― Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet