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According to Canadian researchers, ‘over the hill’ begins at 24

According to Canadian researchers, ‘over the hill’ begins at 24

Warning: you're about to feel old.

According to a new study by researchers at Simon Fraser University, our cognitive-motor performance begins to slow at 24 years of age.

"Among the general public, people tend to think of middle age as being roughly 45 years of age, after which there are obvious age-related declines in cognitive-motor functioning," the authors write.

"Aging research has shown that this general conception is incorrect. There is much evidence that memory and speed on a variety of cognitive tasks may peak much earlier."

How did they determine this younger-than-expected initiation into old age? Gaming records.

The study, which was published last week in the online scientific journal PLOS ONE, "investigates age-related changes in cognitive motor performance through adolescence and adulthood in a complex real world task, the real-time strategy video game StarCraft 2."

The research team analyzed the gaming records for 3,305 StarCraft 2 players aged 16 to 44 and found that, while response times for players at every skill level remain steady from the age of 16 to 24, at the age of 24, players' response times start to slow.

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They discovered that the difference in response time to a new threat between a 24-year-old player and a 39-year-old player is about 150 milliseconds, a sizeable advantage when different skill levels are also taken into account.

"After around 24 years of age, players show slowing in a measure of cognitive speed that is known to be important for performance," says study co-author and psychology doctoral student Joe Thompson. "This cognitive performance decline is present even at higher levels of skill."

The researchers are unsure whether age slows perception, processing or physical response time individually, or the ability to coordinate the three.

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"There's no need for doom and gloom," Thompson tells Postmedia News. "The old view that when you reach adulthood you enjoy a long period of cognitive stability and you can forget about aging until you get old. But what we are finding is that we adapt continuously throughout our lives to changing ability, so give yourself a pat on the back for just maintaining your skills. If you do, you’re showing growth and development."

The data indicated that older players often drop complicated strategies for simpler, more efficient ones to compensate for their slower speeds.

"Our research tells a new story about human development," says Thompson. "Older players, though slower, seem to compensate by employing simpler strategies and using the game’s interface more efficiently than younger players, enabling them to retain their skill, despite cognitive motor-speed loss."

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So there's a silver lining to the news that over-the-hill starts at 24: we may be slowing down, but we're not too old to adapt to the change.

Other things that make us feel old:

This infographic reminds us that Pac-Man has been around for 34 years now.

The Lion King hit theatres 20 years ago.

And these kids have never seen a Walkman.

What makes you feel old?