Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Age-Related Differences In Context-Specificity Benefits Ambiguous Predictive Learning, Catherine Luna

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

The present study investigated age differences in the context-specificity effect in learning. Ambiguity was manipulated in two conditions in a predictive learning paradigm (Callejas-Aguilera & Rosas, 2010) to encourage participants to attend to context. In the ambiguous condition, foods led to the presence of the illness equally as often as its absence. In the non-ambiguous condition, foods consistently led to the presence of the illness or consistently lead to its absence. Participants were instructed to make predictive judgments for foods leading to the presence of an illness in one of two restaurant contexts. During the test, participants made predictive judgments …