At low memory loads, older adults report less uncertainty than younger adults despite making larger errors, suggesting an overconfidence bias¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associationalr3·q3
Currency · newest study 2018 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
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q3 i? Reported uncertainty declined with age at loads 1 and 2 (load 1: r = -0.14, p < .001; load 2: r = -0.13, p < .01) but not at loads 3 through 4. → Daniel J. Mitchell 2018
Evidence¶
Daniel J. Mitchell 2018¶
Daniel J. Mitchell, Cam-CAN (Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience), Rhodri Cusack. (2018). Visual Short-Term Memory Through the Lifespan: Preserved Benefits of Context and Metacognition. Psychology and Aging. https://doi.org/10.1037/pag0000265
q3 · i? · associational · r3
Correlation of mean confidence-interval width with age per memory load in the Cam-CAN sample. The article interprets this as older adults being more confident of their judgments than younger adults at low loads despite making larger errors, a metacognitive bias consistent with reported age-related increases in overconfidence.
"Reported uncertainty declined slightly with age, but only at low memory loads (load 1: r = −0.14, p < .001; load 2: r = −0.13, p < .01; loads 3 through 4: p > .1)."
Discussion¶
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Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
older-adults-overconfident-low-load-vstm |
title |
At low memory loads, older adults report less uncertainty than younger adults despite making larger errors, suggesting an overconfidence bias |
description |
At low memory loads, older adults report less uncertainty than younger adults despite making larger errors, suggesting an overconfidence bias |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
2018 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-17 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — daniel-j-mitchell-2018 |
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