Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Aging And Selective Attention In Causal Learning, Melanie Waldrop Asriel

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study investigated age differences in generalization of causal value employing similarity as a cue to causality. Exemplars from six food categories (A+, B-, C+, D-. E+, F-) were presented to both young and older adults in two contiguous training phases. Training Phase 1 included exemplars from categories A+, B-, C+, D-. Training Phase 2 included exemplars from A+, B-, E+, F-. Foods in the “+” categories were paired with an outcome of sickness and foods in the “-” categories were not paired with sickness. Tests of causal judgment and exemplar recognition were conducted. For causal judgment, individual exemplars experienced …