Health & Medicine
Aging May Affect Our Ability To Make Decisions
Kathleen Lees
First Posted: Jun 01, 2015 05:59 PM EDT
Can aging affect our ability to make decisions? New findings published in the journal Cognition reveal that aging, which is also associated with cognitive function, can disrupt our ability to sometimes make more complex decisions pertaining to politics, economics and other issues.
Researchers noted how aging is associated with a significant decline in so-called fluid cognitive abilities that hinder our overall ability to retain certain memories or to quickly solve cognitive problems, which pertain to our role in "decisions from experience" that can result in potential consequences of available options conveniently summarized to be acquired through information search (exploration) and learning.
For their findings, researchers at the University of Basel and the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin conducted three studies in which younger and older adults (24 to 71 years) repeatedly made decisions based on experience-either on a computer in the lab (study 1) or on an iPad at home (study 2).
Participants had to choose between 2 options based on a lottery in which they were presented as two unlabeled boxes. Yet before making a decision, they could sample possible gains and losses of each option by clicking to sample the possible gains and losses of each option via the boxes they liked. From there, they were able to learn which option was better based on higher gains or the smaller loss in the long run.
Findings revealed that older adults put the same amount of effort into exploring the options they chose as the younger adults.
"Younger as well as older adults are using relatively simple but successful learning strategies", said first-author Dr. Renato Frey, in a news release.
It was only in a third study in which participants had to pick between four or up to eight options that researchers observed a decline in decision-making from the older adults.
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First Posted: Jun 01, 2015 05:59 PM EDT
Can aging affect our ability to make decisions? New findings published in the journal Cognition reveal that aging, which is also associated with cognitive function, can disrupt our ability to sometimes make more complex decisions pertaining to politics, economics and other issues.
Researchers noted how aging is associated with a significant decline in so-called fluid cognitive abilities that hinder our overall ability to retain certain memories or to quickly solve cognitive problems, which pertain to our role in "decisions from experience" that can result in potential consequences of available options conveniently summarized to be acquired through information search (exploration) and learning.
For their findings, researchers at the University of Basel and the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin conducted three studies in which younger and older adults (24 to 71 years) repeatedly made decisions based on experience-either on a computer in the lab (study 1) or on an iPad at home (study 2).
Participants had to choose between 2 options based on a lottery in which they were presented as two unlabeled boxes. Yet before making a decision, they could sample possible gains and losses of each option by clicking to sample the possible gains and losses of each option via the boxes they liked. From there, they were able to learn which option was better based on higher gains or the smaller loss in the long run.
Findings revealed that older adults put the same amount of effort into exploring the options they chose as the younger adults.
"Younger as well as older adults are using relatively simple but successful learning strategies", said first-author Dr. Renato Frey, in a news release.
It was only in a third study in which participants had to pick between four or up to eight options that researchers observed a decline in decision-making from the older adults.
Related Articles
For more great science stories and general news, please visit our sister site, Headlines and Global News (HNGN).
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone