Adult age differences in on-line contingency judgements

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Human Development

Background:

• Age-related cognitive changes impact decision-making.
• Understanding contingency judgments is crucial for cognitive research.
• Working memory's role in cognitive tasks across the lifespan is not fully elucidated.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate age differences in contingency judgment accuracy.
• To examine the influence of working memory on these judgments.
• To explore how information processing demands affect age-related differences.

Main Methods:

• Two experiments involving young and older adults estimating contingency between variables.
• Manipulation of contingency, information amount, and execution speed.
• Varying stimulus duration and event frequencies.

Main Results:

• Participants generally discriminated contingencies well.
• Judgement accuracy decreased with fewer trials and shorter intervals, especially for older adults.
• Increased processing speed demands disproportionately impaired older adults' judgments.

Conclusions:

• Older adults exhibit greater declines in contingency judgment accuracy under increased cognitive load.
• Findings align with models suggesting age-related differences in automatic memory processing.
• Working memory capacity likely mediates the observed age differences in judgment performance.