How accurately can older adults evaluate the quality of their text recall? The effect of providing standards on judgment accuracy

Abstract

Adults have difficulties accurately judging how well they have learned text materials; unfortunately, such low levels of accuracy may obscure age-related deficits. Higher levels of accuracy have been obtained when younger adults make postdictions about which test questions they answered correctly. Accordingly, we focus on the accuracy of postdictive judgments to evaluate whether age deficits would emerge with higher levels of accuracy and whether people's postdictive accuracy would benefit from providing an appropriate standard of evlauation. Participants read texts with definitions embedded in them, attempted to recall each definition, and then made a postdictive judgment about the quality of their recall. When making these judgments, participants either received no standard or were presented the correct definition as a standard for evaluation. Age-related equivalence was found in the relative accuracy of these term-specific judgments, and older adults' absolute accuracy benefited from providing standards to the same degree as did younger adults.