Performance of older adults and college students in a task of reversal learning

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Andréia Schmidt

Abstract

This study aimed to compare the learning and reversal of simple visual discriminations in two groups of healthy participants, matched in relation to education, however, differing in age. Twelve college students (aged 18 to 24 years) and 13 healthy older adults (aged 60 to 77 years), all with at least 12 years of education, learned three simple simultaneous visual discriminations, followed by three successive stimulus function reversal tests. All the participants learned the discriminations; however, only seven older adults achieved the criterion in the reversal tests. All the young participants achieved the criterion in the reversals. Among the older adults that did not achieve the criterion, a non-perseverative error pattern was the most common, with performance declining during the exposure to the reversal tests. 

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How to Cite
Schmidt, A. (2021). Performance of older adults and college students in a task of reversal learning. Mexican Journal of Behavior Analysis, 47(1). https://doi.org/10.5514/rmac.v47.i1.79751