Seeing the Big Picture as We Age

As we introduced in our first blog post, we can sometimes overlook the “hidden upsides” of growing older. In this post, we explore one of those upsides: the ability to abstract away the details to reveal the big picture.

Source: Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

Forgetting the details of a past event can be frustrating: We may want to remember the color of the car that swerved in front of us or the cost of the haircut that we got last week. Certainly, there are times when accessing those details can help us—if we need to describe the car to a police officer or if we are trying to decide whether to return to the same barbershop. But it can also be easy to get bogged down in the details. We can “miss the forest for the trees,” losing sight of the larger situation. Fortunately, as we age, we can become less likely to have this problem: We can be more likely to take a step back and see the big picture.

As we age, we tend to forget the minutia and details of events more readily than when we were younger. At the same time, we do an excellent job extracting the gist, or the general theme, of those same events. This distinction is illustrated by reading the following words: apple, banana, peach, pear, tangerine, plum, orange, nectarine. If you recorded the details, you would be able to look away from the screen and recall each word on the list. If you extracted the gist, you would realize that you just read a list of fruits (Brainerd & Reyna, 2001).

Extracting the gist of a situation develops with practice. Bolstered by years of experience, we find it easier to develop a conceptual or intuitive understanding of situations and to abstract the broader meaning of information. Although memory for gist is not sufficient for all situations, this form of memory allows learning to transfer from one situation to the next. It similarly allows us to draw analogies across situations. When gist is needed for good decision-making, focusing less on exact details, it can lead to better judgements (Setton et al., 2014; Weldon et al., 2014).

Source: Ricardo Gomez Angel/Unsplash

Additional changes in the way that the brain processes information with age can enhance the ability to appreciate the overall situation. Younger adults’ brains tend to be optimized for “pattern separation,” or discerning the distinctions between different events (Yassa & Stark, 2011). This ability can be helpful when trying to remember the details of an event, such as the specific features of a car that swerved in front of us on the highway. But it can get in the way of noticing the similarities across events.

With age, the brain begins to focus more on the process of “pattern completion,” or detecting how events are similar rather than how they differ (Wilson et al., 2006). In this case, when a car swerves, rather than recording the car’s specific details, we may connect it to memories of similar events. Having these associations in mind may, in turn, lead us to act in beneficial ways: slowing down or shifting lanes to put further distance between us and a potentially distracted driver.

We hope this provides insight into the ways the aging brain retains a remarkable ability to recognize similarity between events and abstract general themes. We can capitalize on these strengths in many situations to ensure that we do not lose sight of the big picture.

We will continue to explore “hidden upsides” in our next blog posts, exploring benefits in domains ranging from attention to social relationships.