Work

The hypercorrection effect in younger and older adults

Year: 2012

Type: article

Abstract: ABSTRACT The hypercorrection effect, which refers to the finding that errors committed with high confidence are more likely to be corrected than are low confidence errors, has been replicated many times, and with both young adults and children. In the present study, we contrasted older with younger adults. Participants answered general-information questions, made confidence ratings about their answers, were given corrective feedback, and then were retested on questions that they had gotten wrong. While younger adults showed the hypercorrection effect, older adults, despite higher overall accuracy on the general-information questions and excellent basic metacognitive ability, showed a diminished hypercorrection effect. Indeed, the correspondence between their confidence in their errors and the probability of correction was not significantly greater than zero, showing, for the first time, that a particular participant population is selectively impaired on this error correction task. These results potentially offer leverage both on the mechanisms underlying the hypercorrection effect and on reasons for older adults' memory impairments, as well as on memory functions that are spared.

Source: Aging Neuropsychology and Cognition

DOI: 10.1080/13825585.2012.754399

Authors: Teal S. Eich, Yaakov Stern, Janet Metcalfe

Institution: Columbia University

Language: English

Topic: Memory Processes and Influences

Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience

Field: Neuroscience

Domain: Life Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: green

Funder: National Institute on Aging