How Well Do You Think You Summarize? Metacomprehension Accuracy in Younger and Older Adults.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT: Objectives
Metacomprehension monitoring accuracy in older age may be underestimated because of how it has been measured. Metacomprehension in the present study was uniquely measured by comparing summary quality to summary quality judgments. The effect of age on this accuracy was assessed and results were compared to those measured with the typical approach. The moderation of age effects by reading goal was also assessed but was an exploratory objective.1.Method
Younger adults (141) and older adults (138) read and orally summarized six expository texts. Participants were randomly assigned to a reading goal condition, with half of each age group summarizing for a professor/boss and half summarizing for an acquaintance. Participants made judgments about the quality of their summaries before and after summarizing, took a multiple-choice test of their comprehension, and made judgments about the accuracy of their answers.Results
Age deficits in metacomprehension were generally smaller when measured with the novel approach and age differences were generally larger for the professor/boss condition than for the acquaintance condition.Discussion
The novel approach to measuring metacomprehension monitoring accuracy provides more optimism for aging than typical approaches, discussed in relation to age-related changes in language processing preferences.
SUBMITTER: Fulton EK
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8502466 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Similar Datasets
Project description:As individuals age, they experience increased difficulties producing speech, especially with infrequent words. Older adults report that word retrieval difficulties frequently occur and are highly frustrating. However, little is known about how age affects the neural basis of language production. Moreover, age-related increases in brain activation are often observed, yet there is disagreement about whether such increases represent a form of neural compensation or dedifferentiation. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to determine if there are age-related differences in functional activation during picture naming and whether such differences are consistent with a compensatory, dedifferentiation, or hybrid account that factors in difficulty. Healthy younger and older adults performed a picture-naming task with stimuli that varied in lexical frequency-our proxy for difficulty. Both younger and older adults were sensitive to lexical frequency behaviorally and neurally. However, younger adults performed more accurately overall and engaged both language (bilateral insula and temporal pole) and cognitive control (bilateral superior frontal gyri and left cingulate) regions to a greater extent than older adults when processing lower frequency items. In both groups, poorer performance was associated with increases in functional activation consistent with dedifferentiation. Moreover, there were age-related differences in the strength of these correlations, with better performing younger adults modulating the bilateral insula and temporal pole and better performing older adults modulating bilateral frontal pole and precuneus. Overall, these findings highlight the influence of task difficulty on fMRI activation in older adults and suggest that as task difficulty increases, older and younger adults rely on different neural resources. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).
| S-EPMC7805087 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Past research suggests that older adults expend more cognitive resources when processing visual speech than younger adults. If so, given resource limitations, older adults may not get as large a visual speech benefit as younger ones on a resource-demanding speech processing task. We tested this using a speech comprehension task that required attention across two talkers and a simple response (i.e., the question-and-answer task) and measured response time and accuracy. Specifically, we compared the size of visual speech benefit for older and younger adults. We also examined whether the presence of a visual distractor would reduce the visual speech benefit more for older than younger adults. Twenty-five older adults (12 females, MAge = 72) and 25 younger adults (17 females, MAge = 22) completed the question-and-answer task under time pressure. The task included the following conditions: auditory and visual (AV) speech; AV speech plus visual distractor; and auditory speech with static face images. Both age groups showed a visual speech benefit regardless of whether a visual distractor was also presented. Likewise, the size of the visual speech benefit did not significantly interact with age group for accuracy or the potentially more sensitive response time measure.
| S-EPMC9761220 | biostudies-literature
Project description:AimTo document population perceptions of well-being and predictors of self-assessed well-being.MethodsNational face-to-face interview survey of adults aged ?16 years, conducted by the Office for National Statistics for their Omnibus Survey in Britain (response 58%; 1049 of 1823 eligible).ResultsPeople aged 65+ years were more likely than younger people to define well-being as being able to continue to do the things they had always done. Most men and women, in all age groups, rated their well-being and mental well-being positively. Self-rated health, mental health symptoms, long-standing illness and social support were the main drivers of overall well-being in all age groups. Mental health symptoms, long-standing illness and social support were the main drivers of mental well-being. For example, in reduced multivariable models, those who reported no long-standing illness had almost twice the odds of others, of good, rather than not good, overall well-being, and over three times the odds of good, rather than not good, mental well-being. The odds of good versus not good overall well-being were also multiplied by 1.002 for each additional available person for comfort and support and similarly by 1.073 in relation to mental well-being.ConclusionsUnderstanding the drivers of well-being among adults, including older adults, is of high policy importance. Attention should be focused on improvements in population health and functioning and on encouraging younger and older people to develop and maintain social support networks and engagement in social activities.
| S-EPMC3062779 | biostudies-literature
Project description:This study examined the associations between social support from different relationship types (i.e., spouses, children, friends, and parents) and psychological well-being (i.e., happiness and depressive symptoms), and the mediating effects of basic psychological need satisfaction (i.e., autonomy, competence, and relatedness) in these associations. A dataset on social support, satisfaction of basic psychological needs, and psychological well-being was collected from 823 South Korean adults (the mean of age = 48.83; 50.40% male). Results showed that social support from spouses and friends had the most robust associations with happiness and depressive symptoms. In addition, the satisfaction of needs for autonomy and relatedness mediated the associations between social support from spouses and friends, and happiness and depressive symptoms. However, these associations differed by age groups. Although social support satisfied basic psychological needs better for younger adults than for older adults, the satisfaction of needs for autonomy and relatedness was critical in order to support well-being for both groups.
| S-EPMC9733472 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundSpending time in natural environments is beneficial for human health, but many older adults have limited or no access to natural environments. Virtual reality technology may be a means to facilitate nature experiences, and so, there is a need for knowledge on how to design virtual restorative natural environments for older adults.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to identify, implement, and test older adults' preferences and ideas regarding virtual natural environments.MethodsA total of 14 older adults (mean age 75, SD 5.9 years) participated in an iterative process to design such an environment. We used think-aloud protocols and qualitative content analysis and established questionnaires that targeted usability, affective aspects, and side effects. These data guided the design decisions for incremental implementations of a prototype.ResultsThe participants' preferences included trueness to reality in terms of rendition and behavior; traces of human activity and natural processes that trigger the imagination and provide believability; the ability to roam, explore, and interact with the environment; and a familiar, relatable environment that evokes memories. The iterative design process resulted in a prototype featuring many of the participants' ideas and preferences, including a seated locomotion technique, animals, a boat ride, the discovery of a boat wreck, and apple picking. The questionnaire results indicated high perceived usability, interest, and enjoyment; low pressure and tension; moderate value and usefulness; and negligible side effects.ConclusionsWe suggested 3 principles for virtual natural environments for older adults: realness, interactivity, and relatedness. Virtual natural environments should also provide a diversity of content and activities to accommodate the heterogeneity in older adults' preferences. These results can contribute to a framework for designing virtual natural environments for older adults. However, these findings need to be tested and potentially revised in future studies.
| S-EPMC10131598 | biostudies-literature
Project description:PURPOSE:The study had three aims. We investigated, first, how six recovery experiences (i.e., detachment, relaxation, control, mastery, meaning, and affiliation) during off-job time suggested by the DRAMMA model (Newman et al. in J Happiness Stud 15(3):555-578. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-013-9435-x, 2014) are related to well-being (i.e., vitality, life satisfaction, and work ability). Second, we examined how age related to these outcomes, and third, we investigated whether age moderated the relationships between recovery experiences and well-being outcomes. METHODS:A sample of 909 Finnish teachers responded to an electronic questionnaire (78% women, average age 51 years). The data were analyzed with moderated hierarchical regression analyses. RESULTS:Detachment from work, relaxation, control, and mastery were associated with higher vitality. Detachment, relaxation, meaning, and affiliation were related to higher life satisfaction. Older age was related to lower work ability, but not to vitality or life satisfaction. Older teachers benefited more from control and mastery during off-job time than did younger teachers in terms of vitality, whereas younger teachers benefited more from relaxation in terms of all well-being outcomes. CONCLUSIONS:Detachment, relaxation, control, mastery, meaning, and affiliation during off-job time were related to higher well-being, supporting the DRAMMA model. Age moderated the relationships between control, mastery, and relaxation and vitality and life satisfaction. The role of aging in recovery from work needs further research.
| S-EPMC7007884 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Integrating the social identity and aging literatures, this work tested the hypothesis that there are two independent, but simultaneous, responses by which adults transitioning into old age can buffer themselves against age discrimination: an individual response, which entails adopting a younger subjective age when facing discrimination, and a collective response, which involves increasing identification with the group of older adults. In three experimental studies with a total number of 488 older adults (50 to 75 years of age), we manipulated age discrimination in a job application scenario and measured the effects of both responses on perceived health and self-esteem. Statistical analyses include individual study results as well as a meta-analysis on the combined results of the three studies. Findings show consistent evidence only for the individual response, which was in turn associated with well-being. Furthermore, challenging previous research, the two responses (adopting a younger subjective age and increasing group identification) were not only theoretically, but also empirically distinct. This research complements prior research by signaling the value of considering both responses to discrimination as complementary rather than mutually exclusive.
| S-EPMC5678732 | biostudies-literature
Project description:This study examined the effects of age and hearing loss on short-term adaptation to accented speech. Data from younger and older listeners in a prior investigation [Gordon-Salant et al. (2010). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 128, 444-455] were re-analyzed to examine changes in recognition over four administrations of equivalent lists of English stimuli recorded by native speakers of Spanish and English. Results showed improvement in recognition scores over four list administrations for the accented stimuli but not for the native English stimuli. Group effects emerged but were not involved in any interactions, suggesting that short-term adaptation to accented speech is preserved with aging and with hearing loss.
| S-EPMC2951995 | biostudies-other
Project description:Emotional information rapidly captures our attention and also often invokes automatic response tendencies, whereby positive information motivates approach, while negative information encourages avoidance. However, many circumstances require the need to override or inhibit these automatic responses. Control over responses to emotional information remains largely intact in late life, in spite of age-related declines in cognitive control and inhibition of responses to non-emotional information. The goal of this behavioral study was to understand how the aging process influences emotional response inhibition for positive and negative information in older adults. We examined emotional response inhibition in 36 healthy older adults (ages 60-89) and 44 younger adults (ages 18-22) using an emotional Go/No-Go task presenting happy (positive), fearful (negative), and neutral faces. In both younger and older adults, happy faces produced more approach-related behavior (i.e., fewer misses), while fearful faces produced more avoidance-related behavior, in keeping with theories of approach/avoidance-motivated responses. Calculation of speed/accuracy trade-offs between response times and false alarm rates revealed that younger and older adults both favored speed at the expense of accuracy, most robustly within blocks with fearful faces. However, there was no indication that the strength of the speed/accuracy trade-off differed between younger and older adults. The key finding was that although younger adults were faster to respond to all types of faces, older adults had greater emotional response inhibition (i.e., fewer false alarms). Moreover, younger adults were particularly prone to false alarms for happy faces. This is the first study to directly test effects of aging on emotional response inhibition. Complementing previous literature in the domains of attention and memory, these results provide new evidence that in the domain of response inhibition older adults may more effectively employ emotion regulatory ability, albeit on a slower time course, compared to younger adults. Older adults' enhanced adaptive emotion regulation strategies may facilitate resistance to emotional distraction. The present study extends the literature of emotional response inhibition in younger adulthood into late life, and in doing so further elucidates how cognitive aging interacts with affective control processes.
| S-EPMC6504835 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Individuals' gaze behavior reflects the choice they will ultimately make. For example, people confronting a choice among multiple stimuli tend to look longer at stimuli that are subsequently chosen than at other stimuli. This tendency, called the gaze bias effect, is a key aspect of visual decision-making. Nevertheless, no study has examined the generality of the gaze bias effect in older adults. Here, we used a two-alternative forced-choice task (2AFC) to compare the gaze behavior reflective of different stages of decision processes demonstrated by younger and older adults. Participants who had viewed two faces were instructed to choose the one that they liked/disliked or the one that they judged to be more/less similar to their own face. Their eye movements were tracked while they chose. The results show that the gaze bias effect occurred during the remaining time in both age groups irrespective of the decision type. However, no gaze bias effect was observed for the preference judgment during the first dwell time. Our study demonstrated that the gaze bias during the remaining time occurred regardless of decision-making task and age. Further study using diverse participants, such as clinic patients or infants, may help to generalize the gaze bias effect and to elucidate the mechanisms underlying the gaze bias.
| S-EPMC5574931 | biostudies-literature