Preserved criterion flexibility in item recognition in older adults.

Abstract

Young and older adults studied a list of words and then took 2 successive tests of item recognition, an easy test consisting of studied words and unrelated lures and a hard test pitting studied words against semantically related lures. When the easy test was first, participants in both age groups adopted a more stringent criterion on the harder test. When the hard test was first, no criterion shift was seen. Older adults can assess the consequences for accuracy of maintaining a lenient criterion when discrimination becomes more difficult and can take appropriate action to control errors under these conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record

Aging and recognition memory: A meta-analysis.

“…Nevertheless, our results are broadly consistent with the claim that older adults are able to flexibly shift their response criterion in ways similar to young adults (e.g., Cassidy & Gutchess, 2015; Criss et al, 2014; Konkel, Selmeczy, & Dobbins, 2015; Olfman et al, 2017; Pendergrass, Olfman, Schmalstig, Seder, & Light, 2012). Older adults generally set more conservative criteria in the same tasks that young adults did, though their criterion shifts were of slightly smaller magnitude.…”

“…This pattern would reduce the number of studied items that older adults miss affirming as studied, at the cost of incorrectly endorsing more studied items. The existence and nature of an age difference in recognition memory criterion has been unclear: Although some other studies also found a more liberal criterion (e.g., Huh et al, 2006), others found similar criteria across ages (e.g., Ahmad, Fernandes, & Hockley, 2015; Baron & Surdy, 1990; Gordon & Clark, 1974) or even a more conservative criterion among older adults (Cassidy & Gutchess, 2015; Criss et al, 2014; Olfman et al, 2017). We cannot definitively account for these differences, but we do note that the liberal shift we observe in criterion placement, although statistically reliable in a large meta-analysis, is of small magnitude (0.05 d ′ units).…”