Bingo Keeps You Young!
Playing bingo can keep
the mind in trim - and the older you are the more agile you may
be, researchers have found.
Tests showed bingo
players were faster and more accurate than non-bingo players in a
range of tests measuring mental speed, memory and the ability to
pick up information from the environment around them.
Players have to be
able to check numbers off quickly and need rapid hand-eye
co-ordination - but these skills had been thought to decline with
age
And unlike chess,
bridge and backgammon, which need skills that are stored in the
brain and remembered when needed, bingo requires speedy
identification within time constraints.
Julie Winstone, from
the University of Southampton's Center for Visual Cognition at the
Department of Psychology has been testing bingo players' mental
agility over the last year.
She studied the
responses of 112 people aged 18 to 40, and older people aged
between 60 and 82.
Half of each group
played bingo, and the others did not.
She presented her
findings to the Annual Conference of the Psychologists Special
Interest Group in Older People in Winchester.
Winstone said it was
suspected that long-term mental activity - such a bingo - could
stave off the decline of cognitive abilities, such as speed and
accuracy and recognition of patterns.
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