The role of prior knowledge in error correction for younger and older adults

Abstract

Previous work has demonstrated that, when given feedback, younger adults are more likely to correct high-confidence errors compared with low-confidence errors, a finding termed the hypercorrection effect. Research examining the hypercorrection effect in both older and younger adults has demonstrated that the relationship between confidence and error correction was stronger for younger adults compared with older adults. Their results demonstrated that the relationship between confidence and error correction was stronger for younger adults compared with older adults. However, recent work suggests that error correction is largely related to prior knowledge, while confidence may primarily serve as a proxy for prior knowledge. Prior knowledge generally remains stable or increases with age; thus, the current experiment explored how both confidence and prior knowledge contributed to error correction in younger and older adults. Participants answered general knowledge questions, rated how confident they were that their response was correct, received correct answer feedback, and rated their prior knowledge of the correct response. Overall, confidence was related to error correction for younger adults, but this relationship was much smaller for older adults. However, prior knowledge was strongly related to error correction for both younger and older adults. Confidence alone played little unique role in error correction after controlling for the role of prior knowledge. These data demonstrate that prior knowledge largely predicts error correction and suggests that both older and younger adults can use their prior knowledge to effectively correct errors in memory.

Age differences in suggestibility to contradictions of demonstrated knowledge: the influence of prior knowledge

“…It is a question for future research to understand the possible interplay of biases here. Overall, this finding fits with a broad body of research demonstrating the supportive nature of older adults' knowledge on their memory performance (e.g., Badham, Hay, Foxon, Kaur, & Maylor, 2015;Castel, 2005;Hess, 1990Hess, , 2005Hess et al, 1989;Hess & Tate, 1992;Laurence, 1967aLaurence, , 1967bMatzen & Benjamin, 2013;Sitzman et al, 2015), but adds to it with evidence that the stability of access to their knowledge may be critical in older adults' application of what they know.…”

“…Prior knowledge was protective in terms of reducing suggestibility: Both older and younger adults reproduced fewer story errors (misinformation) when they had initially answered an item correctly rather than responded with "I don't know" or another wrong answer. This finding provides evidence that having the correct knowledge stored in memory can insulate against contradictory misleading information, consistent with Mullet, Umanath, and Marsh (2014) (see also, Sitzman et al, 2015 for benefits related to error correction).…”

“…Of note is that previous related aging work has not directly measured participants' knowledge, relying instead on knowledge norms to represent what correct knowledge participants were likely or unlikely to have stored in memory (e.g., Umanath & Marsh, 2012) or collecting self-report data afterwards (e.g., Sitzman, Rhodes, Tauber, & Liceralde, 2015). This is problematic as the existing norms (Nelson & Narens, 1980;Tauber, Dunlosky, Rawson, Rhodes, & Sitzman, 2013) are not appropriate for aging studies: They were developed using exclusively younger adult participants.…”

Metacognitive monitoring and the hypercorrection effect in autism and the general population: Relation to autism(-like) traits and mindreading

“…A gamma of zero indicates no association between initial confidence and likelihood of error correction (i.e., random corrections). This approach to scoring is employed in the majority of studies of the hypercorrection effect [Butler et al (2011), Metcalfe (2001, 2006), Eich et al (2013), Marsh (2009, 2010); Iwaki et al (2013); Finn (2011, 2012), Metcalfe and Miele (2014); , Sitzman et al (2014), and Sitzman et al (2015)]. …”

The influence of feedback on predictions of future memory performance

“…Decades of research show that feedback is highly beneficial for memory (Butler, Karpicke, & Roediger, 2008;Kulhavy & Anderson, 1972;Sitzman, Rhodes, & Tauber, 2014;Sitzman, Rhodes, Tauber, & Liceralde, 2015;Skinner, 1954). For example, feedback provides another study opportunity, enhances retention of correct information, identifies information needing additional study, and facilitates error correction.…”