Neuroscience: Old people learn new skills faster if it helps others, unlike youngsters

Older people can pick up new skills faster if doing so benefits other people, rather than themselves -- unlike young adults, who learn faster when helping themselves. This is the conclusion of a study by researchers from the Universities of Birmingham and Oxford who conducted tests involving so-called reinforcement learning. This is the understanding we develop from assessing the positive outcomes from our previous choices -- enabling us to adapt our decisions to our environment. The finding that older people are more motivated to learn when it helps others could help experts find new ways to combat age-related cognitive decline, the team said. The team also found that older people appeared more likely to have'grown out' of psychopathic traits like a lack of empathy, perhaps explaining the results.