Chandigarh
30 January 2018
DIVYA AZAD
The Panjab University Colloquia Committee headed by Prof. (Dr.) Promila Pathak organized 45th Colloquium Lecture on “The Ageing Mind” at Panjab University today on Jan 30, 2018 in collaboration with Department of Psychology, P.U. and LM Thapar School of Management, Dera Bassi, Mohali (Pb.). The lecture was presided over by Prof. (Dr.) B.S. Ghuman , Vice Chancellor, Punjabi University, Patiala & Dean Arts Faculty, PU. Chandigarh.
Prof. Promila Pathak, Coodinator PU Colloquium Committee introduced the speaker , Prof. (Dr.) Robert Logie who is a noted Professor of Human Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Edinburgh, U.K. She shared with audience that Prof.Logie’s major research interests include human memory, and particularly working memory in the healthy, ageing, and damaged brain. She further highlighted that his empirical research with healthy younger and older adults, and with patients suffering focal brain damage and neurodegenerative disease, has provided a substantial body of evidence for the proposal that human mental ability is not a single entity limited solely by attention or general intelligence, but comprises a range of domain-specific mental tools and memory resources that are applied strategically to current tasks.
In his lecture on “The Ageing Mind, Prof. Logie highlighted different kinds of memory systems which encompasses faces; names ; public and personal events ; working memory; accessing prior knowledge of world; skills and prospective memory which is accumulated throughout ones life. He also apprised the audience that different cognitive abilities change at different rates across age, some abilities are least affected and some are most affected. He stressed that working memory is important for reasoning and guidance of decision-making and behavior. Furthermore, he articulated that ‘we use working memory in every waking moment of our life, it helps in moment to moment tracking and updating of tasks’. He delved upon how his research has led to the development of simple, cognitive tests to help diagnose Alzheimer’s disease, and ended up with describing an ongoing research project “WOMAAC” i.e Working Memory Across Adult Lifespan: An Adversial Collaboration” on working memory across the adult lifespan being carried out as collaboration amongst scientists in Scotland UK, in Missouri USA, and in Switzerland.
Prof. BS Ghuman, Vice Chancellor, Punjabi University, Patiala, in his presidential address posed a serious question on how in the age of artificial intelligence we are rapidly losing our working memory. He congratulated and felicitated Prof Logie for his wonderful work in the field of neuroscience offering practical tips to counter limitations of ageing mind.
At the end, Prof. Promila Pathak, coordinator PU Colloquium proposed the vote of thanks .The lecture was well attended by a large number of senior and young faculty members, research scholars and UG/PG students of the University.
