Older and younger adults’ revision of health misconceptions

ABSTRACT

Although ample younger adult research has detailed effective strategies for revising misconceptions, research with older adults is less extensive. Older adults may be less able to correct errors in knowledge due to age-related changes in cognition, but it is also possible that older adults’ revision of misconceptions has been limited by methodologies which do not provide adequate support for correction. In two experiments, we examined how older and younger adults revise health-related misconceptions when provided with cognitive support in the form of explicit detailed feedback and an immediate test. Older and younger adults in Experiment 1 answered true/false health statements, received feedback with a detailed explanation of the correct response, took an additional test on the same statements immediately following the initial test, and completed a final test 1-week later. Older and younger adults corrected a similar proportion of misconceptions immediately and maintained most of those revisions across a 1-week delay. In Experiment 2, older adults corrected the same proportion of misconceptions on the final test regardless of whether or not they received a test immediately following feedback. Overall, older adults revised health misconceptions as effectively as did younger adults but variables influencing correction (e.g., belief in feedback) may differ.

KEYWORDS:

• Aging
• knowledge revision
• error correction
• misconceptions
• older adults

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Experiment 2 was conducted online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Analyses comparing the older adult samples in Experiment 1 and Experiment 2 can be found at https://osf.io/v26fe/.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the James S. McDonnell Foundation twenty-first Century Science Initiative in Understanding Human Cognition Collaborative Activity Grant and the Eastern Washington University Faculty Grant for Research and Creative Works. The supplemental analyses, materials, and raw data have been uploaded to the Open Science Framework and can be accessed at https://osf.io/v26fe/.