For decades, researchers have known that cognitive performance correlates with how long people live. However, a new study has illuminated a more nuanced aspect of this relationship—revealing that not all mental abilities hold equal weight when it comes to predicting longevity. According to recent findings published in Psychological Science, a specific cognitive skill verbal fluency emerged as a striking predictor of lifespan among older adults, even more so than general intelligence or memory. Individuals capable of swiftly naming animals or generating words beginning with a specific letter were found to live substantially longer, with a difference in median survival time approaching nine years between those with high and low performance in this area.
This research was conducted with the aim of addressing a longstanding question in aging science: Do certain types of intelligence hold greater predictive value for survival than others? While numerous earlier studies have linked higher intelligence with longer life, many of them relied on isolated assessments rather than tracking cognitive changes over time. Moreover, debates have persisted over whether it is a person’s average cognitive level or their rate of cognitive decline that provides more insight into their longevity prospects.
To deepen understanding in this domain, the team of researchers behind the current study turned to a robust longitudinal dataset drawn from the Berlin Aging Study—a well-regarded research project involving very old adults. This allowed them to examine multiple types of mental abilities side by side while also capturing how those abilities evolved as participants aged.
“The connection between cognitive ability and survival has been established in scientific literature for quite some time,” said Paolo Ghisletta, lead author and professor of psychology at the University of Geneva. “More recently, increasing evidence has pointed toward the relevance of cognitive changes over time, not merely static ability levels, in predicting longevity.”
possible to analyze long-term cognitive trajectories alongside mortality outcomes. Ghisletta and his colleagues, working with the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, capitalized on a particularly rich dataset in which participants’ mental abilities were assessed up to 14 times over an 18-year period. The initial age range of the study’s participants spanned from 70 to 104 years, with an average age of 85.
Notably, all of the individuals included in the analysis had already passed away by the time of the study, which provided researchers with complete data for evaluating the relationship between cognitive function and lifespan.
