Older people are not always inferior to younger people in studies, a new study proves. In particular, they are better given the ability to correct their own mistakes.
Psychologists David Friedman (David Friedman) and Janet Metcalfe (Janet Metcalfe) from Columbia University (USA) have studied the so-called “effect of overcorrection”. It is as follows: when a person is confident in the correctness of his decision or choice, but still makes a mistake, he is most likely to correct it. If he was initially not too sure, then he is less likely to want to make a correction. Studies have shown that this effect is pronounced in children and students, but less pronounced in older people.
Perhaps older people are just bad at correcting mistakes in cases where they were initially confident in their answer? It is possible that the opposite is true – they can correct mistakes better than young people in situations where they are not too sure of their answers.
To test these assumptions, David Friedman and Janet Metcalfe decided to conduct an experiment in which they invited 44 young (mean age 24 years) and 45 elderly (mean age 74 years) volunteers who had never suffered from neurological or psychiatric disorders.
In the first phase of the experiment, participants took a general erudition test (with questions like “Which city was the Hanging Gardens in?”). In cases where they were not sure of their knowledge, they were asked to try to guess the answer, although the “I don’t know” option was also present. Participants were also asked to rate their confidence in each answer on a seven-point scale, after which they were told the correct answer (such as “Babylon”) while their brain activity was monitored using an EEG. Testing continued until the participant made 20 errors in the answers that he was sure of, and 20 in those answers that he was not sure of.
Read more:
- Why do I really hide my age
As expected, the older participants performed better on the general erudition questions—on average, they answered 41% of the questions correctly, while the younger participants did only 26%. They were also more confident in their answers. All participants in general correctly assessed their knowledge – they were more confident in those answers that turned out to be correct.
The volunteers were then asked to retest. It included 40 questions that were answered incorrectly, as well as 20 questions that the participants did not answer at all. At the same time, EEG readings were no longer taken.
Older participants in the study corrected more of their mistakes when retesting than younger ones – apparently, they were better at updating their knowledge with new information. It is also noteworthy that they corrected more errors in those answers that they were not initially sure about. Apparently, older people are less prone to the “overcorrection effect”. Analysis of the EEG data also confirmed this conclusion.
The researchers believe that “it is important for older people to know the truth, they do not want to make mistakes and concentrate as much as possible to do everything right.” They also add that these results go against the common notion that all intelligence necessarily declines with age.
Подробнее см. D. Friedman et al. «On Teaching Old Dogs New Tricks», Psychological Science, October 2015.