New research from Penn State has found that when adults between the ages of 70 and 90 reported more frequent, pleasant social interactions, they also had better cognitive performance on that day and the following two. The findings, published in the journal PLOS ONE, may have special relevance now due to social distancing mitigation measures. Says researcher Ruixue Zhaoyang, “Our study is one of the first to show that when you have social interactions on one day it can immediately affect your cognitive performance that same day and also on the following days. The fact that we found that the cognitive benefits of having pleasant social interactions could manifest over such a short time period was a happy surprise and could be a promising area for future intervention studies.”
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