Aging and Associative and Inductive Reasoning Processes in Discrimination Learning

The purpose of this study was to investigate how associative and inductive reasoning processes develop over trials in feature positive (FP) and feature negative (FN) discrimination learning. Younger and older adults completed initial and transfer tasks with either consistent or inconsistent transfer. Participants articulated a rule on every trial. The measure of discrimination learning was the number of trials it took participants to articulate the exact rule. In the initial task, older adults articulated the rule more slowly than younger adults in FP discrimination and took marginally more trials to articulate the rule in FN discrimination than younger adults. Age differences were greater in FP discrimination than in FN discrimination learning because younger adults performed well in FP discrimination learning. In the transfer task, older adults articulated the FP rule more slowly than younger adults and both groups articulated the rule more quickly with consistent than inconsistent transfer. Older adults articulated the FN rule slower than older adults. The differences in trials to articulate the FN rule for the two groups were somewhat larger for inconsistent transfer than consistent transfer. Discrimination learning was explained in terms of associative and inductive reasoning processes reasonably well. The measure of associative processes was forgotten responses, whereas the measures of inductive reasoning processes were irrelevant cue shifts and perseverations. In FP discrimination learning in the initial task, older adults had a greater proportion of forgotten responses, irrelevant cue shifts, and marginally more perseverations than younger adults. Therefore, older adults had more difficulty with associative and inductive reasoning processes than younger adults in FP discrimination. In FN discrimination, older adults had a greater proportion of forgotten responses than younger adults. Older and younger adults had a similar number of irrelevant cue shifts and perseverations. Therefore, in FN discrimination older adults had more difficulty with associative processes than younger adults. Both groups had difficulty with inductive reasoning processes. In FP discrimination in the transfer task, older adults had a greater proportion of forgotten responses, irrelevant cue shifts, and perseverations than younger adults, and these proportions were similar in consistent and inconsistent transfer. Therefore, in FP discrimination older adults had more difficulty than younger adults with both associative and inductive reasoning processes. Both processes were similar with regards to consistent and inconsistent transfer. In FN discrimination, older adults had a greater proportion of forgotten responses than younger adults, and the proportion of forgotten responses was greater in inconsistent than in consistent transfer. Both groups made a similar number of irrelevant cue shifts, and there was a marginal difference in consistent and inconsistent transfer for this measure with a greater number in inconsistent transfer. Older adults had a greater proportion of perseverations than younger adults. However, there were no differences in the number of perseverations for consistent and inconsistent transfer. Thus, older adults had difficulty with associative and inductive reasoning processes. Younger adults' inductive reasoning skills improved. The associative and inductive reasoning processes in FN discrimination were not as efficient in inconsistent transfer as in consistent transfer.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Department of Psychology

Year

2006

Author dc:creator

• Ortz, Courtney

• Cognition and Perception
• Social Psychology

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/266

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.wku.edu:theses-1269