How Well Do You Think You Summarize? Metacomprehension Accuracy in Younger and Older Adults

Metacomprehension monitoring accuracy in older age may be underestimated because of how it has been measured. Metacomprehension in the present study was uniquely measured by comparing summary quality to summary quality judgments. The effect of age on this accuracy was assessed and results were compared to those measured with the typical approach. The moderation of age effects by reading goal was also assessed but was an exploratory objective.1.

Younger adults (141) and older adults (138) read and orally summarized six expository texts. Participants were randomly assigned to a reading goal condition, with half of each age group summarizing for a professor/boss and half summarizing for an acquaintance. Participants made judgments about the quality of their summaries before and after summarizing, took a multiple-choice test of their comprehension, and made judgments about the accuracy of their answers.

Age deficits in metacomprehension were generally smaller when measured with the novel approach and age differences were generally larger for the professor/boss condition than for the acquaintance condition.

The novel approach to measuring metacomprehension monitoring accuracy provides more optimism for aging than typical approaches, discussed in relation to age-related changes in language processing preferences.