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Young and old adults' ability to use different standards to evaluate understanding
K Zabrucky1, D Moore, N R Schultz
1Department of Educational Psychology and Special Education, Georgia State University.
Journal of Gerontology
|September 1, 1993
Summary
Older adults struggle with text comprehension, especially detecting inconsistencies when information is not adjacent. Education level impacts problem detection across all age groups.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Gerontology
Background:
- Text comprehension relies on evaluating understanding against various standards.
- Age-related cognitive changes may impact comprehension monitoring.
- Prior research indicates potential declines in older adults' cognitive functions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate age differences in text comprehension evaluation.
- To examine the impact of education on text comprehension.
- To explore how text structure affects older adults' ability to detect inconsistencies.
Main Methods:
- Experiment 1: Compared young and old adults on detecting lexical, external, and internal inconsistencies in texts.
- Experiment 2: Assessed older adults' ability to detect nonadjacent internal inconsistencies with varying intervening material.
- Utilized nonsense words, prior knowledge violations, and inconsistent sentences as evaluation standards.
Main Results:
- Higher education correlated with better problem detection across age groups.
- Older adults were less proficient than younger adults in using internal consistency standards.
- Older adults' performance on internal consistency detection was hindered by nonadjacent inconsistencies, unlike younger adults.
Conclusions:
- Older adults may experience retrieval difficulties affecting text comprehension monitoring.
- Age-related declines in regulating comprehension are suggested.
- Educational attainment is a significant factor in text evaluation abilities across the lifespan.