Mutter Sharon A, Williams Thomas W
Department of Psychology, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY 42101, USA.
Psychol Aging. 2004 Mar;19(1):13-26. doi: 10.1037/0882-7974.19.1.13.
Young and older participants' ability to detect negative, random, and positive response-outcome contingencies was evaluated using both contingency estimation and response rate adaptation tasks. Age differences in contingency estimation were consistently greater for negative than positive contingencies, and these differences, though still present, were smaller when response rate adaptation was used as the measure of contingency learning. Detecting causal contingency apparently becomes more difficult with age, especially when an oven numerical estimate of contingency must be provided and when the relationship between a causal event and an outcome is negative. A model that incorporates features of both associative and rule-based approaches to contingency learning (e.g., P. C. Price & J. F. Yates, 1995; D. R. Shanks, 1995) provides the best explanation for this pattern of findings.
通过使用偶然性估计和反应率适应任务，对年轻和年长参与者检测负面、随机和正面反应-结果偶然性的能力进行了评估。在偶然性估计中，年龄差异在负面偶然性方面始终比正面偶然性更大，并且当使用反应率适应作为偶然性学习的衡量标准时，这些差异虽然仍然存在，但会更小。显然，随着年龄增长，检测因果偶然性变得更加困难，尤其是当必须提供偶然性的精确数值估计时，以及当因果事件与结果之间的关系为负面时。一个结合了偶然性学习的联想式和基于规则方法特征的模型（例如，P.C.普赖斯和J.F.耶茨，1995年；D.R.尚克斯，1995年）为这种研究结果模式提供了最佳解释。
