by There is forgetting and there is forgetting. If you’re over 40, chances are you’ve experienced the frustration of trying to catch that slippery word on the tip of your tongue. Colloquially, this could be described as forgetting, but most memory scientists would call it retrieval failure, meaning that the memory is there but we simply can’t retrieve it when we need it. On the other hand, Forgetting (with a capital F) is when a memory is apparently lost or disappears completely. Carelessly combining the names of the leaders of two countries would fall into the first category, while not being able to remember that you ever met the president of Egypt would fall into the second.
Throughout typical aging, we see changes in the functioning of the prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain that plays a leading role in many of our day-to-day memory successes and failures. These changes mean that as we get older, we tend to become more distracted and often have trouble finding the words or names we are looking for. Remembering events takes longer and requires more effort, and we cannot detect errors as quickly as before. This translates into a lot more forgetfulness and a little more forgetfulness.
Many of the special counsel’s observations about Biden’s memory appear to fall into the category of forgetfulness, meaning they are more indicative of a problem finding correct information from memory than forgetfulness. Remembering the date an event occurred, such as the last year of Biden’s vice presidency or the year of her son’s death, is a complex measure of memory. Remembering that an event occurred is different from being able to put a date on when it happened, which is more challenging as age increases. The president most likely has many memories, although he could not immediately pinpoint the dates in the stressful (and more urgent) context of the October 7 attack on Israel.
Other “memory” problems highlighted in the media are not so much cases of forgetting as of difficulties in articulating facts and knowledge. For example, in July 2023, Biden wrongly stated in a speech that “we have more than 100 people dead,” when he should have said “more than a million.” He has struggled with stuttering since childhood, and research suggests that controlling stuttering demands prefrontal resources that would normally allow people to find the correct word or at least quickly correct errors after the fact.
Americans are understandably concerned about the advanced age of the two leading contenders in the upcoming presidential election (Biden is 81 and Donald Trump is 77), although some of these concerns are rooted in cultural stereotypes and fears around aging. The fact is that there is an enormous degree of variability in cognitive aging. Age is associated, on average, with a decline in memory, but studies following the same person over several years have shown that although some older adults show precipitous declines over time, other older adults stay as sharp as ever.
