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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Age differences in learning and the question of preexperimental interference | | Author(s) | Laura L Finken, Renee L Babcock |
| Journal title | Educational Gerontology, vol 22, no 7, October - November 1996 |
| Pages | pp 683-692 |
| Keywords | Mental ageing ; Biological ageing ; Learning capacity. |
| Annotation | Pre-experimental interference can be defined as prior knowledge outside of the experimental situation that affects the subject's performance in the experiment. In this study, the effects of congruity and amount of new information were separated. Participants were 50 older and 50 younger adults with varied levels of familiarity with a standard keyboard, determined by a pre-test. Participants were presented with a new keyboard format and performed 3 typing trials. Results revealed a significant main effect for age: older participants performed worse than younger participants on the new keyboard. This study provides support for Welford's (1958) theory that it is the amount of new information and not the pre-experimental interference that accounts for the age difference in learning. |
| Accession Number | CPA-970312017 A |
| Classmark | D6: BH: DE |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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