Older and younger adults' revision of health misconceptions.

Although ample younger adult research has detailed effective strategies for revising misconceptions, research with older adults is less extensive. Older adults may be less able to correct errors in knowledge due to age-related changes in cognition, but it is also possible that older adults' revision of misconceptions has been limited by methodologies which do not provide adequate support for correction. In two experiments, we examined how older and younger adults revise health-related misconceptions when provided with cognitive support in the form of explicit detailed feedback and an immediate test.

How do older adults maintain corrections in knowledge across a lengthy delay?

Older adults often correct errors in existing knowledge as effectively as younger adults despite the fact that inaccurate knowledge has the potential to cause interference with memory for a correct response. In the current experiments, we sought to explore whether error corrections are maintained across a delay and identify mechanisms that may support this process. In Experiment 1, younger and older adults answered general knowledge questions, rated confidence in their responses, were shown feedback, and rated their prior knowledge of the question and answer.

The influence of feedback on predictions of future memory performance.

Kornell and Rhodes (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 19, 1-13, 2013) reported that correct answer feedback impairs the accuracy of prospective memory judgments. The current experiments explored the boundaries of this effect. In Experiment 1, participants studied Lithuanian-English word pairs, took an initial test, and were either given correct answer feedback or no feedback at all.

The role of prior knowledge in error correction for younger and older adults.

Previous work has demonstrated that, when given feedback, younger adults are more likely to correct high-confidence errors compared with low-confidence errors, a finding termed the hypercorrection effect. Research examining the hypercorrection effect in both older and younger adults has demonstrated that the relationship between confidence and error correction was stronger for younger adults compared with older adults. Their results demonstrated that the relationship between confidence and error correction was stronger for younger adults compared with older adults.

Prior knowledge is more predictive of error correction than subjective confidence.

Previous research has demonstrated that, when given feedback, participants are more likely to correct confidently-held errors, as compared with errors held with lower levels of confidence, a finding termed the hypercorrection effect. Accounts of hypercorrection suggest that confidence modifies attention to feedback; alternatively, hypercorrection may reflect prior domain knowledge, with confidence ratings simply correlated with this prior knowledge. In the present experiments, we attempted to adjudicate among these explanations of the hypercorrection effect.