Age-related decline of metacognitive comprehension monitoring in adults aged 50 and older: Effects of cognitive abilities and educational attainment

Abstract

When reading complex expository texts, comprehension benefits from metacognitive monitoring of the comprehension process, which, in part, relies on memory and reasoning abilities that decrease with age. In a cross-sectional study, we examined age-related differences regarding metacognitive comprehension monitoring in adults aged between 50 and 77 (N = 176, M = 63;10 years, SD = 6;2). As an indicator of comprehension monitoring, we considered the number of detected inconsistencies in an inconsistency task. Our findings indicated a moderate but steady decrease of comprehension monitoring, which was mediated via a decrease in verbal intelligence. Besides this negative effect of age, we found a positive effect of educational attainment on comprehension monitoring. Thus, continued experience with texts, for instance provided in jobs that require a university degree, appears to positively affect comprehension monitoring. There was, however, no evidence of a compensatory effect of education on age-related declines in comprehension monitoring.