Comparing Sigelman And Rider's Definition Of Lifespan

Lifespan is the period that begins at conception and ends after death. However, Sigelman and Rider’s definition of lifespan is more formal which is “systematic changes and continuities in the individual that occur between conception and death or from “womb to tomb””. Taking a lifespan perspective is looking at an individual to see how that individual grows ,changes, or stay the same over time, usually from birth to death. There are three developments across the lifespan which are physical, cognitive, and psychosocial development. Physical development is the growth of the body and its organs, while cognitive development is all the development in the brain and how we use it. Psychosocial development is the development of our personalities and

Memory falls under cognitive development and we use memory every moment of the day from waking up to going to sleep. It might not seem like we are using it but it is actively on, such as when we are doing our daily chores or even sitting down to watch TV. The definition of memory by Sigelman and Rider is “our ability to store and later retrieve information about past events, develops and change over the life span”. While doing our daily chores, we use memory to recall the skills that are required to do these daily chores so in short memory is used to retrieve information from our brain that is store there. When we are sitting down to watch a TV show, we also use our memory to recall information from our brain about what had happened last episodes so we can understand the current episodes

The teen’s memory improves with attention, knowledge base increases, and they will make time to study for subjects they don't fully understand. However, the most important improvement during adolescences is that elaboration, connecting 2 or more items for easier recalling, is to its fullest. Nature and nurture is the same for adolescences as for the child. When the adolescence turns 20 years old, the information processing should be at its peak.”In other words, information processing is thought to be the most efficient- at its peak- in emerging and young adults” (Pg. 250 Sigelman and Rider). As the years increase, adults will learn to be better at strategies such as becoming more organized since they have more experience. Adults will be the best at what they do but will have a hard time learning new tasks because their memory is not as good as before. As adults get older into elders, they will have trouble remembering and their memory will decline. These adults have a harder time with timed tasks and unfamiliar tasks. Declining in memory is not universal so nature takes over. Having a good environment such as keep learning new things will increase the neuronal connections and make the decline