Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Human behavioral complexity peaks at age 25: study

journals.plos.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 91 posts

Re: Human behavioral complexity peaks at age 25: study

#41

Post by 52-6F-62 »

suneilp wrote: post #10
windlep wrote: post #5

I wonder how/if this relates to the fact that many mental illnesses fully manifest around 25 as well. "Roughly half of all lifetime mental disorders in most studies start by the mid‐teens and three‐fourths by the mid‐20s." - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1925038/

From personal experience I'd say it can relate to mental illnesses caused by trauma, hostile environments, etc. Getting over trauma and other emotional baggage has resulted in large improvements in sustained focus, lower inhibitions, and general cognitive improvements for me and I'm well past the age of 25.

Different roots here, but same results.

Gradually worsened up until ~25, though. Vastly improved after a couple of years, and seeing the tail ends ~30

Re: Human behavioral complexity peaks at age 25: study

#42

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

copperx wrote: post #34
awkwardtortoise wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In academia, only those who get tenured professorships are sitting pretty. And they get to sit pretty for decades. Everyone else has to hustle to get their crumbs. I know people who are teaching adjuncts and they get paid crumbs ( $2 or $3K PER SEMESTER ). This is at a highly competitive university where tuition + board is $80K. I could not believe it.

3K per semester with an advanced degree? That's insane. You earn more being a graduate student. Is that a non-STEM field? A regular job would be a much better option.

Yes, it is insane.

Universities have become sweatshops. There are a handful of tenured foremen/women, but everyone else is busking it.

The students are psrt of the cash crop, investment income, donations from alumni, and grants make up the rest.

Original thinking and game-changing research have been deprecated.

Re: Human behavioral complexity peaks at age 25: study

#44

Post by joveian »

noobermin wrote: post #33

Ok, comments on fig. 2. The 95% confidence intervals are plotted, but clearly the distribution of their subjects seems to sample heavily near where they find their peak (~25 to 40 ish), and correspondingly, the drop offs are away from that area... Seems fishy to me.

Also, if you look at the right side of figure 1 there are lines on the bottom of the complexity chart for each of the tasks, presumably representing people who essentially did not do the task (although they still seem to have spent a variable amount of time not doing the task). It looks like this skews older, and just by eyeballing the chart some of the 75+ would be upward trends if not for that bottom line. I skimmed the article and did not see a discussion of this.

Re: Human behavioral complexity peaks at age 25: study

#45

Post by xux »

Did anyone even read the article. The study has nothing to do with complex behavior or "sophisticated" behavior. It's a study on your ability to generate random list of results, like "listing the hypothetical results of a series of 12 coin flips so that they would 'look random to somebody else'"

Re: Human behavioral complexity peaks at age 25: study

#46

Post by tim333 »

WilliamDhalgren wrote: post #35
copperx wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible to get a link to that episode?

ah, I'm sorry but I really don't remember. this was some years back.

Maybe http://www.theskepticsguide.org/podcast/sgu/530

https://www.sgutranscripts.org/wiki/SGU_Episode_530

?

Re: Human behavioral complexity peaks at age 25: study

#47

Post by Lownin »

derefr wrote: post #27
windlep wrote: post #5

I wonder how/if this relates to the fact that many mental illnesses fully manifest around 25 as well. "Roughly half of all lifetime mental disorders in most studies start by the mid‐teens and three‐fourths by the mid‐20s." - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1925038/

A large part of this is that doctors are wary to diagnose mental disorders in children/teenagers, though. Often, symptoms of mental illness during development are just the brain doing the neurochemical equivalent of "one leg growing faster than the other"—it ends up balancing out. There is still some element of truth to this, though, especially with bipolar disorder and psychosis. It puts me in mind of the fact that…

FWIW, I developed a rather severe allergy to many types of fish out of nowhere at 31.

Re: Human behavioral complexity peaks at age 25: study

#48

Post by twiss »

In high school, my math teacher once asked us to write down a random string of zeroes and ones, similar to what they did in the study to measure "cognitive functioning". He then asked us to count the number of times we alternated between 0 and 1. He told us that while most people try to have about a 50% split between 0 and 1, many alternate too often (0101101 instead of 0100011). Maybe there are other tests that one could learn to improve one's randomness, or at least write down a random string faster (they also measured speed).

In the introduction, they cite that "the complexity of a subject-produced pseudorandom sequence (…) is surprisingly resistant to practice effects". However, is it also resistant to teaching effects?

Re: Human behavioral complexity peaks at age 25: study

#49

Post by Jach »

ue_ wrote: post #13
kaeluka wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if that really happens: there's plenty of ways you can spin this into an advantage, long term. An event like this closes some doors, but will also open others. In any case: good luck with the exams! You can do a lot of exam preparation in a week! Don't give up before it's over :-)

Thank you; the pass mark being only 40% has given me some hope. It's been a large step up in terms of volume of content from what I did to get in.

I would rather hope to fail than to slip by with 40%-60%. You'll waste 5 years of your life (because such slackers rarely get it done in 4) and come out not knowing much and forgetting that little bit too after a year or so. I can't really give a personal cautionary tale (I am a slacker, but of the courses I passed I tried to do well at least on the final and still remember a lot of details plus where to refresh memories) but I see it often enough in others. Some of them are fine with it, some of them regret it, some of them double down and find a new school / degree program. Take a close look at what you want from the university system -- little learning but socialization or just a simple piece of paper (they look a lot nicer in a frame) is entirely justifiable, just consider how you might judge your choices in hindsight once you're at the end (as well as have an idea of what you'll do at the end).

Re: Human behavioral complexity peaks at age 25: study

#50

Post by Jach »

bootload wrote: post #20
ue_ wrote: post #3

I'm 20 years old in my first year of university, and I'm probably going to fail the final exams next week. I don't think I'll be having the chance to take advantage of this peak.

"I'm probably going to fail the final exams next week." You can improve on mental toughness to control emotion. It is not a fixed skill. Four skills needed to overcome ^fear^ and ^panic^ is through control of the limbic system: [0] - Positive self talk - Goal setting of tasks - Mental rehearsal of tasks - Arousal control (breathing) [0] "Mental Training" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ-24JtAFQw

Which is the most universal human characteristic - fear or laziness?
Post reply on HN