Age Differences in Processes Underlying Hindsight Bias: A Life-Span Study

Abstract

Hindsight bias is the tendency to overestimate one's prior knowledge of a fact or event after learning the actual fact. Recent research has suggested that age-related differences in hindsight bias may be based on age-related differences in inhibitory control. We tested whether this explanation held for 3 cognitive processes assumed to underlie hindsight bias: recollection bias, reconstruction bias, and the tendency to adopt newly acquired knowledge as old. We performed a typical hindsight-bias study with 9-year-olds, 12-year-olds, young adults, and older adults. Participants first gave numerical judgments to difficult almanac questions. They later received the correct judgments for some of the questions while trying to recall their own earlier judgments. To experimentally test the impact of inhibitory control, the correct judgment was presented either in a weak or in a strong manner that was difficult to ignore. Hindsight bias was larger in the strong condition than in the weak condition and followed a U-shaped life-span pattern with young adults showing the least hindsight bias in line with an inhibitory-control explanation. Yet, the mixture of underlying processes differed considerably between age groups, so inhibitory control did not suffice as a sole explanation of age differences.

Hindsight bias and false-belief reasoning from preschool to old age.

“…Also, hindsight bias was greater in older adults than in 10to 17-year-olds. This U-shaped data pattern conceptually replicates prior work that used a smaller age range with smaller samples, often using general-knowledge tasks focusing on childhood or adulthood (e.g., Bayen et al, 2006;Bernstein, Erdfelder, et al, 2011;Ghrear et al, 2020Ghrear et al, , 2021Groß & Pachur, 2019;Pohl et al, 2010Pohl et al, , 2018. False-belief reasoning errors were significant in all age groups but did not differ with age.…”

Only Familiar Information is a “Curse”: Children’s Ability to Predict What Their Peers Know

“…Much debate exists over the specific cognitive mechanism that mediates the bias (e.g., Bernstein, Kumar, Masson, & Levitin, 2018; Pezzo, 2003, Pohl, 1998; Pohl, Bayen, Arnold, Auer, & Martin, 2018; Wasserman et al, 1991). We believe that the instances that do not result in the curse of knowledge are as theoretically informative (if not more informative) than instances that result in the curse of knowledge.…”

Age differences in hindsight bias: A meta-analysis.

“…Third, reconstruction bias may, with probability c , be traced back to “adopting” the CJ as one’s OJ (“CJ adoption” or “source confusion”; e.g., ROJ = CJ < OJ). We will not consider parameter c in this article, because it is typically very low in both older and young adults (as compared to children; Pohl et al, 2018; Pohl, Bayen, & Martin, 2010). Model equations are obtained by multiplying the probabilities that lead to a specific rank-order category (yielding branch probabilities) and summing the branch probabilities that lead to the same rank-order category.…”

“…Given that the cognitive mechanisms involved in the task, such as semantic knowledge (generating a judgment), memory retrieval (recalling the original judgment), and inhibition (suppressing memory of the correct answer), are subject to change across the life span (e.g., Craik & Bialystok, 2006; Rey-Mermet & Gade, 2018; Schaie, 2005), it is likely that hindsight bias is also subject to age-related change. Several studies suggest that this is indeed the case (e.g., Bernstein, Erdfelder, Meltzoff, Peria, & Loftus, 2011; Pohl, Bayen, Arnold, Auer, & Martin, 2018). However, findings on age differences in the processes underlying hindsight bias are mixed.…”