Cognitive Aging and the Adaptive Use of Recognition in Decision Making

The recognition heuristic, which predicts that a recognized object scores higher on some criterion than an unrecognized one, is a simple inference strategy and thus an attractive mental tool for making inferences with limited cognitive resources-for instance, in old age. In spite of its simplicity,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychology and aging 2009-12, Vol.24 (4), p.901-915
Main Authors: Pachur, Thorsten, Mata, Rui, Schooler, Lael J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adaptation
Adaptation, Physiological
Adult
Adult. Elderly
Age Factors
Aged
Ageing
Aging
Aging - physiology
Biological and medical sciences
Cognition & reasoning
Cognition Disorders - diagnosis
Cognition Disorders - epidemiology
Cognition. Intelligence
Cues
Decision Making
Decision making. Choice
Developmental psychology
Elderly people
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Heuristics
Human
Humans
Male
Memory
Middle Aged
Older people
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Recognition
Recognition (Learning)
Recognition (Psychology)
Simplicity
Young Adult
Young adults
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Summary:The recognition heuristic, which predicts that a recognized object scores higher on some criterion than an unrecognized one, is a simple inference strategy and thus an attractive mental tool for making inferences with limited cognitive resources-for instance, in old age. In spite of its simplicity, the recognition heuristic might be negatively affected in old age by too much knowledge, inaccurate memory, or deficits in its adaptive use. Across 2 studies, we investigated the impact of cognitive aging on the applicability, accuracy, and adaptive use of the recognition heuristic. Our results show that (a) young and old adults' recognition knowledge was an equally useful cue for making inferences about the world; (b) as with young adults, old adults adjusted their use of the recognition heuristic between environments with high and low recognition validities; and (c) old adults, however, showed constraints in their ability to adaptively suspend the recognition heuristic on specific items. Measures of fluid intelligence mediated these age-related constraints.
ISSN:0882-7974
1939-1498
DOI:10.1037/a0017211