A new study suggests that trial-and-error learning benefits memory in both young and old people, but only when errors are meaningfully related to the right answer.
The study tracked 65 younger (average age 22) and 65 older (average age 72) people who tried to memorize lists of words. Making wrong guesses when given a clue helped the participants memorize the correct words, but only when the clue was semantically related to the word. For example, if someone was trying to memorize the word “rose” they would do better by getting the clue “a flower” and guessing “tulip” than getting the clue “ro__” and guessing “rope”.
The authors say this underlines the conceptual basis of memory and challenges assumptions that people are less able to learn from their mistakes as they age.
Original research paper published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition on October 27, 2014.
Names and affiliations of selected authors
