Word: rabbitt
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Johnny Cash: A Merry Memphis Christmas," Dec. 7 A country, blues, rock and jazz tribute to the holiday season, with guests Eddie Rabbitt, Crystal Gayle, and Johnny's daughter and wife, Rosanne and June. It's been 27 years since Johnny landed in Memphis and during tonight's walk down memory lane. Cash is set to visit the band shell in which he played his first concert...
Finally, the hearing of the elderly often may be adequate for their age, but straining to hear well can drain their energies. Some years ago, Rabbitt did studies for the British Post Office showing that sounds heard through low levels of noise are difficult to recapture. "If you are listening through crackle," he says, "even if you can repeat what is said, you can't remember it as well." By the same token, elderly people with a minor hearing problem may have to concentrate so much to pick up a voice that they forget the contents of the sentence...
These three facts, says the researcher, could explain why old people are often accused of trying to do all the talking. "This is attributed to natural selfishness and some corrosion of personality," says Rabbitt. "In fact, it could just be a defense against the possibility of embarrassing muddle. Just because you've got a poor memory doesn't mean you are not aware of the embarrassment you cause. And one way of not being embarrassed, and of being sure you know what's going on, is to be the only person who has spoken...
...people in groups sometimes sound like a caricature of a bad cocktail party-each person bursts forth to speak his own mind, apparently without listening to anyone else. Rabbitt calls these outbursts "disjunctive interruptions" and suggests they have nothing to do with egotism or intolerance. "In fact, the old people have little choice," he says. "They can follow each statement, but they get muddled as to the theme, because they lose track of who said what." Once caught in that bind, an oldster has limited options: he or she can always launch a new monologue or simply sit there...
...Bombay-born son of a civil servant, Rabbitt became interested in aging by accident, when conducting routine tests in connection with his Ph.D. thesis at Cambridge, which showed widely varying reactions between young and old. He once tested some 2,000 people in St. Petersburg, Fla., for the U.S. Public Health Service, and his current project is a thorough study of 500 old people in the Oxford area. Though his picture of failing memory is stark, Rabbitt points out that the description hardly fits everyone: 5% to 10% of people in their 70s have memories just as reliable as their...