Reward conditions and socioeconomic status in the learning of older adults

It was hypothesized that older adults do not perform well in laboratory learning tasks, not so much because they do not learn well as because they are reluctant to demonstrate what they have learned by venturing responses when uncertain. This hypothesis was tested by contrasting the performance of older subjects who were rewarded for responding, right or wrong (experimental group) with subjects who were rewarded for only correct responses (control group). Older subjects from a wide range of SES levels learned most efficiently under the control condition. However, for older subjects from high SES vs low SES levels, differential results were obtained. The high SES subjects learned more efficiently under the control condition, whereas there was a trend for the low SES subjects to learn more efficiently under the experimental condition. The hypothesis therefore received at least partial support in this study.