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Wisdom comes with age, study shows
研究：姜还是老的辣

Older people's wisdom helped them outperform younger participants at taking the bigger picture into account. [Agencies]

Wisdom really does come with age, according to a study that shows older people make better decisions than young adults, who are too impulsive, the Daily Telegraph reported.

据英国《每日电讯报》报道，一项研究显示老人做决定不像年轻人那样冲动，说明智慧是随着年龄的增长而积累的。

Two experiments designed to mirror realistic decision-making scenarios showed that older people were far better at making choices that led to long-term gain. While university-age participants were quicker to make choices which led to immediate rewards, another group aged 60 to 80 were much more adept at taking strategic decisions which took future stages into account.

两个模拟现实生活中决策过程的实验显示，老人们所做的决定在获得长期收益方面要远远高于年轻人。大学年纪的实验参与者所做的决定会在短期内得到回报，而另一组60岁到80岁的老人家所做的决定则更加具有战略性，把未来要发生的情况考虑得更周全。

The researchers suggested this could be because younger people make choices using a part of the brain called the ventral striatum which is linked to immediate rewards. As this declines with age, older people are forced to compensate by using their prefrontal cortices, which control rational and deliberate thoughts, they said.

(China.org.cn August 29, 2011)

研究者称，这可能是因为年轻人做决定时更多使用的大脑部位是腹面纹状体，这部分大脑考虑事情更注重眼前；随着年龄的增长，它会逐渐萎缩，所以老年人考虑问题时要被迫使用他们的前额叶皮质，而这部分大脑考虑问题会更理性，更加深思熟虑。