The role of metacognitive uncertainty in the delayed retrieval shift of older adults.

Strategic choice behavior of older adults in many skill acquisition tasks can be characterized as a delayed and/or incomplete shift to a more efficient retrieval-based strategy, even when older adults possess the requisite knowledge to use it successfully. The noun-pair lookup task (NPLT) requires verification of whether a centrally presented word pair matches one of a set of pairs displayed at the top of the screen. Because the pairings do not change, verification can be made from memory as the associations are learned. This study examines the role of metacognitive uncertainty in explaining older adults' delayed retrieval shift in the NPLT. Older and younger adults participated in a NPLT with previously learned items and new items. For each trial, the look-up table was shown only if the scanning strategy was selected. Some participants were given a precue informing whether the item had been previously learned. Retrieval strategy choice was low for older adults but precueing increased its frequency. Older adults' retrieval choices had minimal costs on NPLT accuracy, suggesting that the delayed retrieval shift can be exacerbated by metacognitive uncertainty that was reduced by precueing. The role of metacognitive uncertainty in older adults' retrieval avoidance was supported by a robust item-level regression effect of retrospective confidence judgments during prelearning tests and later NPLT retrieval strategy choices for older adults.

Aging in Context: Incorporating Everyday Experiences Into the Study of Subjective Age.

The age that a person feels is a strong predictor of their well-being and long-term health, beyond chronological age, showing that people have a self-awareness that provides insight into their aging process. It appears this insight has broad implications for a person's everyday life and functioning. One's subjective age is shaped by metacognitive beliefs about aging, including both expectations about typical changes but most notably the awareness and interpretation of personal experiences. Subjective age has been described as multidimensional, aligning with life domains such as cognitive, social, and physical functioning. This perspective, coupled with laboratory studies that manipulate subjective age, suggests that situational context has an important role in determining the age a person feels. Here we review literature on subjective age with a focus on how research and theoretical perspectives should be adapted to integrate momentary experiences. We propose a contextual model that will help discriminate the links between situational influences and subjective age, as well as resulting behaviors that impact health and well-being. While most research has considered subjective age to be a relatively stable variable, we provide a novel account of how daily life offers a variety of situational contexts and experiences that directly impact the age a person feels at a given moment. We propose that studying moment-to-moment context is a critical next step in understanding the associations between subjective age, lifestyle choices, and health outcomes.

Tracking the dynamics of global and competitive inhibition in early and late adulthood: Evidence from the flanker task.

Inhibitory control is proposed to involve 2 dissociable processes that feature distinct types of inhibition: a threshold adjustment process involving the global inhibition of motor output and a controlled selection process involving competitive inhibition among coactive responses. Recent research with children and young adults indicates that the functioning of these processes can be targeted by measuring participants' hand movements as they perform inhibitory control tasks by reaching to touch response options on a digital display. The current study explores (a) whether this method can be used to target the functioning of the threshold adjustment process and controlled selection process in adults 65 to 75 years of age and, if so, (b) whether the functioning of each process changes between early and late adulthood. Results from the Eriksen flanker task indicate that reach tracking can be used to target the functioning of each process in late adulthood, with older adults and young adults generating similar patterns of initiation time and curvature effects. The congruency effect observed in response times was significantly larger in older adults than in young adults, indicating that inhibitory control declines in late adulthood. Importantly, this effect was specific to initiation times, suggesting that the threshold adjustment process functions differently in early adulthood than in late adulthood. These results present a new perspective on how age-related differences in inhibitory control are conceptualized and assessed, and raise important questions concerning how the threshold adjustment and controlled selection processes function across a wider range of tasks in late adulthood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Schematic support increases memory strategy use in young and older adults.

During learning, a shift in processing often occurs with task experience, where initial slow, algorithmic processing proceeds into fast, retrieval-based processing. Older adults are slower than young adults in the rate at which this shift occurs, in part due to a reluctance to use a retrieval strategy. The present research employed task materials that alleviate age-related differences in associative memory so that participants could rely on prior knowledge or schematic support. The goal was to determine whether older adults' retrieval reluctance is due to a general avoidance of using the retrieval strategy or to low confidence in their memory for unfamiliar task materials. Participants completed two learning tasks: the Noun-Pair Lookup Task, where task materials consist of unrelated noun pairs, and an isomorph, the Grocery-Price Lookup Task, where task materials were grocery items and prices. In this second task, the prices were either market-priced and consistent with everyday experience or were overpriced. Older adults were retrieval reluctant in the Noun-Pair Lookup Task, replicating previous findings. Stark condition differences were found in the Grocery-Price Lookup Task; older adults shifted much sooner for market-priced materials than for overpriced materials, and young adults shifted much later than expected for overpriced materials, where their final levels of learning were inconsistent with their memory use. Condition differences in retrieval use were substantially larger than the differences in retrieval accuracy. These results imply that confidence in using the retrieval strategy matters for both young and older adults, and that retrieval reluctance is not solely an age-related phenomenon. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Metacognitive predictions and strategic adaptation to distractors.

Multitasking is ubiquitous, and substantial evidence has documented the impact on cognitive performance. People do not seem to recognize their multitasking deficits, however, as there is a lack of correspondence between predicted and actualperformance. We have less clarity about how people adapt to multitasking, and howthis varies with age. Thisstudy investigated metacognitive predictions and strategic adaptation in old and young adults using concurrent laboratory tasks. The primary task was visuospatial navigation and the secondary task was visual serial addition. Participants completed each task alone, and then two blocks concurrently. The second dual task block allowed participants to adapt the speed of the navigation task. Young adults performed better than old, and performance suffered with dual tasks for both ages. Predictions were loosely calibrated to navigation performance. Both age groups adapted to multitasking via speed selection, with greater conservatism by older adults, but adapation was not related to predictions.

The Role of Task Understanding on Younger and Older Adults' Performance.

Objectives: Age-related performance decrements have been linked to inferior strategic choices. Strategy selection models argue that accurate task representations are necessary for choosing appropriate strategies. But no studies to date have compared task representations in younger and older adults. Metacognition research suggests age-related deficits in updating and utilizing strategy knowledge, but other research suggests age-related sparing when information can be consolidated into a coherent mental model. Method: Study 1 validated the use of concept mapping as a tool for measuring task representation accuracy. Study 2 measured task representations before and after a complex strategic task to test for age-related decrements in task representation formation and updating. Results: Task representation accuracy and task performance were equivalent across age groups. Better task representations were related to better performance. However, task representation scores remained fairly stable over the task with minimal evidence of updating. Discussion: Our findings mirror those in the mental model literature suggesting age-related sparing of strategy use when information can be integrated into a coherent mental model. Future research should manipulate the presence of a unifying context to better evaluate this hypothesis.

How often are thoughts metacognitive? Findings from research on self-regulated learning, think-aloud protocols, and mind-wandering.

Metacognitive monitoring refers to how people evaluate their cognitive performance. An extensive literature examines how accurately individuals engage in monitoring. The question of how often individuals engage in metacognitive monitoring has been largely neglected, although one might expect situational, group, and individual variability in monitoring frequency. We argue that this is a critical omission, given that the frequency of metacognitive monitoring might have important implications for monitoring accuracy and task performance. Within this review, we highlight findings from three literatures, that each provide insight into how often individuals engage in monitoring. To clarify the important links and potential overlaps between these separate bodies of research, we begin by summarizing the metacognitive monitoring literature, including age-related patterns in monitoring accuracy. We then connect these questions regarding spontaneous monitoring, including age-related patterns in spontaneous monitoring, to targeted reviews of the self-regulated learning, think-aloud protocol, and mind-wandering literatures. We discuss situational and dispositional factors believed to influence monitoring accuracy, and propose that the same factors could potentially influence the frequency of spontaneous monitoring. Additionally, we propose that age-related increases in spontaneous monitoring (as suggested by age-related increases in TRI) may contribute to older adults' intact monitoring abilities. It is our hope that this review will encourage increased attention and research on the topic of spontaneous monitoring.

Age-related differences in mind-wandering in daily life.

In recent years, several laboratory studies have indicated that healthy older adults exhibit a reduction in mind-wandering frequency compared with young adults. However, it is unclear if these findings extend to daily life settings. In the current study, using experience sampling over the course of a week in the daily life of 31 young and 20 older adults, we assessed age-related differences in: (a) mind-wandering frequency, (b) the relationship between affect and mind-wandering frequency, and (c) content of mind wandering. Older adults mind wandered less than young adults in daily life. Across age groups, negative affect was positively associated with mind-wandering occurrence. Finally, older adults reported that their thoughts were more pleasant, interesting, and clear compared with young adults, who had thoughts that were more dreamlike, novel, strange, and racing. Our results provide the first demonstration using thought sampling that older adults exhibit a reduction in mind-wandering frequency in daily life. Implications for current theories of age-related reductions in mind-wandering frequency are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

Priming performance-related concerns induces task-related mind-wandering.

Two experiments tested the hypothesis that priming of performance-related concerns would (1) increase the frequency of task-related mind-wandering (i.e., task-related interference; TRI) and (2) decrease task performance. In each experiment, sixty female participants completed an operation span task (OSPAN) containing thought content probes. The task was framed as a math task for those in a condition primed for math-related stereotype threat and as a memory task for those in a control condition. In both studies, women whose performance-related concerns were primed via stereotype threat reported more TRI than women in the control. The second experiment used a more challenging OSPAN task and stereotype primed women also had lower math accuracy than controls. These results support the "control failures×current concerns" framework of mind-wandering, which posits that the degree to which the environmental context triggers personal concerns influences both mind-wandering frequency and content.

Stereotype threat as a trigger of mind-wandering in older adults.

Older adults (OAs) report less overall mind-wandering than younger adults (YAs) but more task-related interference (TRI; mind-wandering about the task). The current study examined TRI while manipulating older adults' performance-related concerns. We compared groups for which memory-related stereotype threat (ST) was activated or relieved to a control group. Participants completed an operation span task containing mind-wandering probes. ST-activated OAs reported more TRI than ST-relieved OAs and had worse performance on the operation span task. This study illustrates that environmental context triggers current concerns and determines, in part, the frequency and content of mind-wandering. (PsycINFO Database Record

Relate it! Objective and subjective evaluation of mediator-based strategies for improving source memory in younger and older adults.

The present study examined younger and older adults' ability to improve their source memory for different types of sources through imaginal and verbal (sentence) mediators. Younger (18-29 years) and older (60-75 years) adults' strategy use and source memory for either text-type (bold vs italic) or person (woman vs man) sources was assessed; strategy use was either spontaneous or the generation of imaginal mediators was instructed before encoding. Younger and older adults did not differ in spontaneous use of mediator-based strategies; however, older adults generated more images but fewer verbal mediators than younger adults. Participants were able to increase mediator generation when instructed to, resulting in substantial increases in both item and source memory for the instructed conditions in both age groups. Use of verbal mediators was more likely for the more concrete person sources for which source memory was generally better. Importantly, these objective benefits of mediator-based strategies translated into subjective benefits for both younger and older adults: Increased use of either mediator type was correlated with lower experienced task difficulty; the instructions to use imaginal mediators resulted in a significant decrease in difficulty ratings on the group level. Participants were generally able to monitor mediator benefits to both item and source memory and accurately judged mediator strategies (especially imagery) as more effective than repetition; older adults, however, rated all strategies as less effective than younger adults. Implications of these findings, especially for neuropsychological studies on source monitoring, are discussed.

Aging and memory improvement through semantic clustering: The role of list-presentation format.

The present study examined how the presentation format of the study list influences younger and older adults' semantic clustering. Spontaneous clustering did not differ between age groups or between an individual-words (presentation of individual study words in consecution) and a whole-list (presentation of the whole study list at once for the same total duration) presentation format in 132 younger (18-30 years, M = 19.7) and 120 older (60-84 years, M = 69.5) adults. However, after instructions to use semantic clustering (second list) age-related differences in recall magnified, indicating a utilization deficiency, and both age groups achieved higher recall in the whole-list than in the individual-words format. While this whole-list benefit was comparable across age groups, it is notable that older adults were only able to improve their average recall performance after clustering instructions in the whole-list but not in the individual-words format. In both formats, instructed clustering was correlated with processing resources (processing speed and, especially, working memory capacity), particularly in older adults. Spontaneous clustering, however, was not related to processing resources but to metacognitive beliefs about the efficacy and difficulty of semantic clustering, neither of which indicated awareness of the benefits of the whole-list presentation format in either age group. Taken together, the findings demonstrate that presentation format has a nontrivial influence on the utilization of semantic clustering in adults. The analyses further highlight important differences between output-based and list-based clustering measures. (PsycINFO Database Record

Older Adults' Use of Retrieval Strategies in Everyday Life.

BACKGROUND: Despite declines in cognitive abilities, older adults often perform comparable to younger adults in everyday tasks [J Am Geriatr Soc 1999;47:172-183]. Older adults may compensate for cognitive declines by using more efficient strategies. People often improve their efficiency by switching from an algorithmic strategy where information is computed or looked-up, to a strategy where the information is retrieved directly from memory [J Exp Psychol Gen 1988;117:258-275]. However, older adults are reluctant to shift from algorithmic strategies to retrieval strategies in the laboratory, and this reluctance to use retrieval is driven by both bottom-up (slower learning) and top-down influences (memory confidence, motivation to be quick/accurate) [Psychol Aging 2004;19:452-466; Mem Cognit 2004;32:298-310]. OBJECTIVE: We investigated whether bottom-up and top-down factors influence younger and older adults' decisions to use retrieval-based or algorithmic strategies in everyday life. METHODS: In two studies, participants completed a daily diary for 5 (study 1) or 7 (study 2) days. Participants were asked if and how they completed daily activities within several everyday task domains. They also indicated for how long and how often they completed the specific activity (bottom-up factors), as well as how confident they were in using their memory and how motivated they were to perform the specific activity quickly and accurately (top-down influences). RESULTS: Both studies provided evidence for bottom-up and top-down influences. Additionally, study 2 found that top-down factors (memory confidence and motivation to be quick) were more important for older compared to younger adults. CONCLUSION: These results indicate that strategy choices influence older adults' cognitive efficiency in everyday as well as laboratory learning.

Preservation of memory-based automaticity in reading for older adults.

Concerning age-related effects on cognitive skill acquisition, the modal finding is that older adults do not benefit from practice to the same extent as younger adults in tasks that afford a shift from slower algorithmic processing to faster memory-based processing. In contrast, Rawson and Touron (2009) demonstrated a relatively rapid shift to memory-based processing in the context of a reading task. The current research extended beyond this initial study to provide more definitive evidence for relative preservation of memory-based automaticity in reading tasks for older adults. Younger and older adults read short stories containing unfamiliar noun phrases (e.g., skunk mud) followed by disambiguating information indicating the combination's meaning (either the normatively dominant meaning or an alternative subordinate meaning). Stories were repeated across practice blocks, and then the noun phrases were presented in novel sentence frames in a transfer task. Both age groups shifted from computation to retrieval after relatively few practice trials (as evidenced by convergence of reading times for dominant and subordinate items). Most important, both age groups showed strong evidence for memory-based processing of the noun phrases in the transfer task. In contrast, older adults showed minimal shifting to retrieval in an alphabet arithmetic task, indicating that the preservation of memory-based automaticity in reading was task-specific. Discussion focuses on important implications for theories of memory-based automaticity in general and for specific theoretical accounts of age effects on memory-based automaticity, as well as fruitful directions for future research.

Memory avoidance by older adults: When `old dogs' won't perform their `new tricks'.

Learning often involves a transition from responding based on an effortful initial strategy to using a faster and easier memory-based strategy. Older adults shift strategy more slowly compared to younger adults. I describe research establishing that age differences in strategy shift are impacted not only by declines in older adults' learning, but also by a volitional avoidance of memory retrieval. I also discuss the factors that influence older adults' memory avoidance, including age differences in understanding the available strategies' relative efficiency, accuracy, and effort, as well as age differences in the preference for a consistent strategic approach. Last, I consider the implications of memory avoidance for older adults' everyday functioning. This research demonstrates that volition and choice must be taken into account when studying cognitive performance and aging.

Validating older adults' reports of less mind-wandering: An examination of eye movements and dispositional influences.

The Control Failures × Concerns theory perspective proposes that mind-wandering occurs, in part, because of failures to inhibit distracting thoughts from entering consciousness (McVay & Kane, 2012). Despite older adults (OAs) exhibiting poorer inhibition, they report less mind-wandering than do young adults (YAs). Proposed explanations include (a) that OAs' thought reports are less valid due to an unawareness of, or reluctance to report, task-unrelated thoughts (TUTs) and (b) that dispositional factors protect OAs from mind-wandering. The primary goal of the current study was to test the validity of thought reports via eye-tracking. A secondary goal was to examine whether OAs' greater mindfulness (Splevins, Smith, & Simpson, 2009) or more positive mood (Carstensen, Isaacowitz, & Charles, 1999) protects them from TUTs. We found that eye movement patterns predicted OAs' TUT reports and YAs' task-related interference (TRI, or thoughts about one's performance) reports. Additionally, poor comprehension was associated with more TUTs in both age groups and more TRI in YAs. These results support the validity of OAs' thought reports. Concerning the second aim of the study, OAs' greater tendency to observe their surroundings (a facet of mindfulness) was related to increased TRI, and OAs' more positive mood and greater motivation partially mediated age differences in TUTs. OAs' reduced TUT reports appear to be genuine and potentially related to dispositional factors.

Younger and older adults weigh multiple cues in a similar manner to generate judgments of learning.

One's memory for past test performance (MPT) is a key piece of information individuals use when deciding how to restudy material. We used a multi-trial recognition memory task to examine adult age differences in the influence of MPT (measured by actual Trial 1 memory accuracy and subjective confidence judgments, CJs) along with Trial 1 judgments of learning (JOLs), objective and participant-estimated recognition fluencies, and Trial 2 study time on Trial 2 JOLs. We found evidence of simultaneous and independent influences of multiple objective and subjective (i.e., metacognitive) cues on Trial 2 JOLs, and these relationships were highly similar for younger and older adults. Individual differences in Trial 1 recognition accuracy and CJs on Trial 2 JOLs indicate that individuals may vary in the degree to which they rely on each MPT cue when assessing subsequent memory confidence. Aging appears to spare the ability to access multiple cues when making JOLs.

Accuracy and speed feedback: global and local effects on strategy use.

UNLABELLED: BACKGROUND/STUDY CONTEXT: Skill acquisition often involves a shift from an effortful algorithm-based strategy to more fluent memory-based performance. Older adults' slower strategy transitions can be ascribed to both slowed learning and metacognitive factors. Experimenters often provide feedback on response accuracy; this emphasis may either inadvertently reinforce older adults' conservatism or might highlight that retrieval is generally quite accurate. Response time (RT) feedback can lead to more rapid shift to retrieval (Hertzog, Touron, & Hines, 2007, Psychology and Aging, 22, 607-624). METHODS: This study parametrically varied trial-by-trial feedback to examine whether strategy shifts in the noun-pair task in younger (M = 19) and older (M = 67) adults were influenced by type of performance feedback: none, trial accuracy, trial RT, or both accuracy and RT. RESULTS: Older adults who received accuracy feedback retrieved more often, particularly on difficult rearranged trials, and participants who receive speed feedback performed the scanning strategy more quickly. Age differences were also obtained in local (trial-level) reactivity to task performance, but these were not affected by feedback. CONCLUSIONS: Accuracy and speed feedback had distinct global (general) influences on task strategies and performance. In particular, it appears that the standard practice of providing trial-by-trial accuracy feedback might facilitate older adults' use of retrieval strategies in skill acquisition tasks.

Performance predictions affect attentional processes of event-based prospective memory.

To investigate whether making performance predictions affects prospective memory (PM) processing, we asked one group of participants to predict their performance in a PM task embedded in an ongoing task and compared their performance with a control group that made no predictions. A third group gave not only PM predictions but also ongoing-task predictions. Exclusive PM predictions resulted in slower ongoing-task responding both in a nonfocal (Experiment 1) and in a focal (Experiment 2) PM task. Only in the nonfocal task was the additional slowing accompanied by improved PM performance. Even in the nonfocal task, however, was the correlation between ongoing-task speed and PM performance reduced after predictions, suggesting that the slowing was not completely functional for PM. Prediction-induced changes could be avoided by asking participants to additionally predict their performance in the ongoing task. In sum, the present findings substantiate a role of metamemory for attention-allocation strategies of PM.

Aging ebbs the flow of thought: adult age differences in mind wandering, executive control, and self-evaluation.

Two experiments examined the relations among adult aging, mind wandering, and executive-task performance, following from surprising laboratory findings that older adults report fewer task-unrelated thoughts (TUTs) than do younger adults (e.g., Giambra, 1989; Jackson & Balota, 2012). Because older adults may experience more ability- and performance-related worry during cognitive tasks in the laboratory, and because these evaluative thoughts (known as task-related interference, "TRI") might be sometimes misclassified by subjects as task-related, we asked subjects to distinguish task-related thoughts from TRI and TUTs when probed during ongoing tasks. In Experiment 1, younger and older adults completed either a go/no-go or a vigilance version of a sustained attention to response task (SART). Older adults reported more TRI and fewer TUTs than did younger adults while also performing more accurately. In Experiment 2, subjects completed either a 1- or a 2-back version of the n-back task. Older adults again reported more TRI and fewer TUTs than younger adults in both versions, while performing better than younger adults in the 1-back and worse in the 2-back. Across experiments, older adults' reduced TUT rates were independent of performance relative to younger adults. And, although older adults consistently reported more TRI and less mind wandering than did younger adults, overall they reported more on-task thoughts. TRI cannot, therefore, account completely for prior reports of decreasing TUTs with aging. We discuss the implications of these results for various theoretical approaches to mind-wandering.