Adult age differences in the effects of goals on self-regulated sentence processing.

Abstract

We examined age differences in the allocation of effort when reading text for either high levels of recall accuracy or high levels of efficiency. Older and younger adults read a series of sentences, making judgments of learning before recalling the information they had studied. Older adults showed less sensitivity than the young to the accuracy goal in terms of both reading time allocation and memory performance. Memory monitoring (i.e., the correspondence between actual and perceived learning) and differential allocation of effort to unlearned items were age-equivalent, so that age differences in goal adherence were not attributable to these factors. However, comparison with data from a judgment task neutral with respect to memory monitoring showed that learning gains among the old across trial were reduced relative to young by memory monitoring, suggesting that active memory monitoring may be resource-consuming for older learners. Regression analysis was used to show that age differences in the responsiveness to (cognitive/information-acquisition) goals could be accounted for, in part, by independent contributions from working memory and memory selfefficacy. Our data suggest that both processing capacity ("what you have") and beliefs ("knowing you can do it") can contribute to individual differences in engaging resources ("what you do") to effectively learn novel content from text.Age-graded declines in fluid abilities (e.g., working memory capacity, attentional processes, processing speed) can impact the outcomes of reading, most notably memory for the information in the text that was read (Johnson, 2003;Wingfield & Stine-Morrow, 2000). Poor discourse memory among older adults is often attributed to age-graded changes in processing efficiency (e.g., Hartley, Stojack, Mushaney, Annon, & Lee, 1994;Stine & Hindman, 1994), resulting in a degradation in the strength or fidelity of the text representation garnered from time allocated to the task. The effects of this decrease in processing efficiency on recall performance may be exacerbated by a neglect in the allocation of attentional resources to overcome changes in cognitive ability (Ratner, Schell, Crimmins, Mittelman, & Baldinelli, 1987;Stine-Morrow, Miller, & Leno, 2001;Stine-Morrow, Ryan, & Leonard, 2000;Zabrucky & Moore, 1994), essentially a self-regulatory phenomenon in which reading strategies do not fully accommodate to age-graded change in capacity.This study was motivated by the desire to understand why this accommodation may not occur. We considered the viability of three (not mutually exclusive) explanations. First, it could be that older readers' reduced working memory capacity impairs the executive control of selfregulatory processing (e.g., Thiede & Dunlosky, 1999). Second, it could be that fundamental components of metacognitive control (e.g., the ability to monitor the current status of memory and allocate effort appropriately) are compromised with age (e.g., Hertzog & Dunlosky, 2004). Finally, it could be that age-related change in motiv...

Age differences in learning from text: Evidence for functionally distinct text processing systems

“…Interestingly, while good memory monitoring of learned sentences has been previously demonstrated (Miles & Stine-Morrow, 2004;Stine-Morrow, Shake et al, 2006), ( correlations are typically weaker than those observed in the literature using paired associate (i.e. non-sentence) learning (e.g.…”

“…We argue this is due to the relative preservation of the discourse processor with aging and hence a tendency to engage this system when possible (Radvanksy & Dijkstra, 2007;Stine-Morrow, Miller, et al, 2006;Stine-Morrow et al, 2004). The differentially poor memory among older adults for factoids is likely due to the fact that there was inadequate context to enable engagement of the discourse-level processor, so that older adults were forced to rely on the association-driven textbase processor, creating demands which they are less able to meet (see, for example, Naveh-Benjamin, Brav, & Levy, 2007;Stine-Morrow, Shake, et al, 2006). Second, text memory was more disrupted with age when frequent changes in allocation policy were required in the unblocked condition.…”

“…According to the SRLP model, resource allocations to these levels of text representation are independently regulated and are differentially vulnerable to aging . For example, older adults do not always successfully allocate effort to construct the textbase representation, especially when demands are high (most notably for decontextualised sentences, informationally dense text or stringent goals for memory accuracy; Johnson, 2003;Stine & Wingfield, 1990;Stine-Morrow, Shake et al, 2006;Zabrucky & Moore, 1994), but are exceptionally attuned to discourse and situational representations (Radvansky & Dijkstra, 2007;Radvansky, Zwaan, Curiel, & Copeland, 2001).…”

Consequences of restudy choices in younger and older learners

“…The ability of older learners to select items within their region of proximal learning for restudy has not been assessed in prior research. However, the ability to shift study decisions to easier materials during learning, which is the primary evidence favoring the region-of-proximal-learning framework for younger learners (Metcalfe, 2002), is significantly impaired in older adults (Stine-Morrow, Shake, Miles, & Noh, 2006). Older adults may fail to select items within their region of proximal learning during selfregulated learning because considering potential mnemonic gain may be beyond their limited resources.…”

Principal professional development and principal self-efficacy in an urban school district.

“…They determined, however, that the impact of gender on one's self-efficacy is conditional upon race. Additionally, several researchers have found a negative relationship between self-efficacy and age (Bausch, Michel, & Sonntag, 2014;Chu, 2010;Maurer, 2001;Stine-Morrow, Shake, Miles, & Noh, 2006;Touron & Hertzog, 2004). However, some researchers have discussed factors that moderate the relationship between the two; specifically, when the context of the task is perceived as neutral and not within the domain of younger people, the influence of age is negated (Artistico, Cervone, & Pezzuti, 2003;Schulz & Stamov Roßnagel, 2010).…”