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from the have-had-more-practice-making-mistakes dept.
Findings from a new study challenge the notion that older adults always lag behind their younger counterparts when it comes to learning new things. The study, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, shows that older adults were actually better than young adults at correcting their mistakes on a general information quiz.
"The take home message is that there are some things that older adults can learn extremely well, even better than young adults. Correcting their factual errors--all of their errors--is one of them," say psychological scientists Janet Metcalfe and David Friedman of Columbia University, who conducted the study. "There is such a negative stereotype about older adults' cognitive abilities but our findings indicate that reality may not be as bleak as the stereotype implies."
Metcalfe, Friedman, and colleagues were interested in exploring a phenomenon known as the "hypercorrection effect." According to the effect, when people are very confident about an answer that turns out to be wrong, they tend to correct it; when they're initially unsure about the answer, however, they're less likely to correct it. Previous research has shown that the effect is robust in college students and children, but not as strong in older adults.
Old dogs still have some bite.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 31 2015, @09:42AM
The problem is (for me at least) it takes more effort to learn. In my twenties, Uncle Sam would give me a manual, or some kind of training material. I read it, threw it in a locker, maybe I discussed it with a couple other guys, I might come back to the manual to double check a few things. The knowledge was embedded, and I could use it. I learned the operation of the 102 mm recoilless rifle from the manual, and when I walked up to it, I knew it. I had to touch and feel it before I could claim complete knowledge, but I had everything I needed in my head. No stupid and/or dangerous mistakes, because I knew what to expect, I knew how to operate it.
Today? I would have to read a similar manual two or three times, and I'd want the manual available when I approached the equipment, so that I could double check. I don't learn as fast, but I can learn just as thoroughly, given the time to study.
And, I'll tell you, it makes me feel stupid to spend all that time working to understand things that I once would have thought simple. For instance - creating my RAID array. Yeah, I had read about them, and thought that I understood MDADM and LVM. But, when I attempted it, I just screwed it up. I spent at least 30 minutes on the gdisk commands! Back to the guides, read pertinent material again, and on the fourth try, I finally got my RAID up and working.
This is something that my younger self would have just walked through, and laughed at.
I guess it's can't be called stupid - a stupid person would never get it. But, I've lost that edge that I once had.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 31 2015, @10:39PM
and I'd want the manual available when I approached the equipment
That is your experience working for you. You are not as confident in your abilities so you second guess yourself. You want the manual for when it goes sideways.
What I have found is I skim badly. I always have. It let me get away with a lot of things. But when it goes sideways I have to stop and re-re-read it. I have to work against my assumptions. Which people who are younger like to do. I do/did it. I see my younger coworkers do it too.
What I find is as I get older I get tired of rework. So I want it done correctly first time. So I go slower and make sure I understand it better. The old carpenters adage. Measure twice cut once.