Age-Related Decline in Learning Deterministic Judgment-Based Sequences.

Objectives: Because sequence learning is integral to cognitive functions across the life span, the present study examined the effect of healthy aging on deterministic judgment-based sequence learning.

Methods: College-aged, younger-old (YO), and older-old (OO) adults completed a judgment-based sequence learning task which required them to learn a full sequence by chaining together single stimulus-response associations in a step-by-step fashion.

Results: Results showed that younger adults outperformed YO and OO adults; older adults were less able to acquire the full sequence and committed significantly more errors during learning.