Hindsight bias in younger and older adults: the role of access control

Hindsight bias is the overestimation of one's earlier knowledge about facts or one's prediction of events after learning about the actual facts or events. The authors examined age differences in hindsight bias and their relation to visual access control. Younger and older adults recalled their numerical answers to general-knowledge questions. For half of the items, the correct judgment (CJ) was shown during recall. To indicate whether the distracting CJ was visually accessed, the authors measured fixations to the CJ. An instructional manipulation to ignore the CJ affected fixations and hindsight bias. Older adults showed stronger hindsight bias and more fixations to the task-irrelevant CJ, indicating an age-related deficit in access control. However, evidence for the effect of CJ access on hindsight bias was weak and more pronounced in younger than in older adults.