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Should I keep studying? Consequences of a decision to stop learning in young and older adults
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Krogulska, A., Golik, K, Barzykowski, K., Cox, J., Jakubiak, A. and Maylor, Elizabeth A. (2021) Should I keep studying? Consequences of a decision to stop learning in young and older adults. Psychology and Aging, 36 (2). pp. 158-171. doi:10.1037/pag0000594 ISSN 0882-7974.
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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1037/pag0000594
Abstract
In situations of cognitive overload, the role of a metacognitive decision to stop learning is of utmost importance. We investigated how young and older adults decide to stop learning as a strategy for maximizing memory performance when they face to-be-learned material exceeding their memory capability. People may decide to stop learning for two main reasons: they experience a growing feeling of disfluency as a learning episode progresses and/or they perceive such a decision to be beneficial for future memory performance. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants studied lists of 50 words. The majority of young and older adults stopped learning in conditions where they were allowed to do so. This decision, counterintuitively, decreased the number of recalled words. Crucially, a similar number of young and older adults stopped the presentation of to-be-remembered material, and both age groups suffered comparable consequences in their memory performance. In Experiments 3a and 3b, participants read an experimental scenario and decided whether they would stop learning based on this description alone. People in different age groups predicted their metacognitive decisions similarly. However, participants’ forecasted performance did not reflect the negative influence of these decisions. Regardless of their age, people tend to make a suboptimal decision to stop learning, unaware of its negative consequences. Together, our results suggest that young and older adults can exert metamemory control to similar degrees even though their decisions may not be beneficial for memory performance. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
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Divisions: | Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine > Science > Psychology | ||||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Psychology and Aging | ||||||||
Publisher: | American Psychological Association | ||||||||
ISSN: | 0882-7974 | ||||||||
Official Date: | March 2021 | ||||||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 36 | ||||||||
Number: | 2 | ||||||||
Page Range: | pp. 158-171 | ||||||||
DOI: | 10.1037/pag0000594 | ||||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
Reuse Statement (publisher, data, author rights): | ©American Psychological Association, 2020. This paper is not the copy of record and may not exactly replicate the authoritative document published in the APA journal. Please do not copy or cite without author's permission. The final article is available, upon publication, at: https://doi.org/10.1037/pag0000594 | ||||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||||
Copyright Holders: | American Psychological Association | ||||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 24 November 2020 | ||||||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 31 March 2021 | ||||||||
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