Exploring Age-Related Metamemory Differences Using Modified Brier Scores and Hierarchical Clustering
Date of Award
Spring 5-17-2019
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Department
Computational and Data Sciences
First Advisor
Erik Linstead
Second Advisor
Rene German
Third Advisor
Elizabeth Stevens
Abstract
Older adults (OAs) typically experience memory failures as they age. However, with some exceptions, studies of OAs’ ability to assess their own memory functions– Metamemory (MM)– find little evidence that this function is susceptible to age-related decline. Our study examines OAs’ and young adults’ (YAs) MM performance and strategy use. Groups of YAs (N = 138) and OAs (N = 79) performed a MM task that required participants to place bets on how likely they were to remember words in a list. Our analytical approach includes hierarchical clustering, and we introduce a new measure of MM—the modified Brier—in order to adjust for di↵erences in scale usage between participants. Our data indicate that OAs and YAs di↵er in the strategies they use to assess their memory and in how well their MM matches with memory performance. However, there was no evidence that the chosen strategies were associated with di↵erences in MM match, indicating that there are multiple strategies that might be e↵ective (i.e. lead to similar match) in this MM task.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
C. Parlett, "Exploring age-related metamemory differences using modified Brier scores and hierarchical clustering," M. S. thesis, Chapman University, Orange, CA, 2019. https://doi.org/10.36837/chapman.000076
Comments
Material from this thesis will be used in a forthcoming article in Open Psychology, co-authored with Grace Lin (University of California, Irvine), Masha Jones (University of California, Irvine), Erik J. Linstead (Chapman University), and Susanne M. Jaeggi (University of California, Irvine).