Prevention is better than cure: effects of errors on memory performance during spatial learning in healthy aging

Aging Clinical and Experimental Research, vol. 33, pp. 997–1003

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Healthy aging is accompanied by a decline in learning ability and memory capacity. One widely-studied method to improve learning outcome is by reducing the occurrence of errors during learning (errorless learning; EL). However, there is also evidence that committing errors during learning (trial-and-error learning; TEL) may benefit memory performance. We argue that these inconsistent findings could be driven by a lack of control over the error frequency in traditional EL and TEL paradigms. AIM: This study employed a spatial learning task to study EL and TEL and to determine the impact of error frequency on memory recall in healthy older adults (OA; N = 68) and young adults (YA; N = 60). METHOD: Four groups of participants (YA-EL, YA-TEL, OA-EL, OA-TEL) were instructed to first place and memorize the locations of everyday objects in a chest of drawers presented on a computer screen, and in whom memory recall performance was later tested. In the TEL condition, the amount of errors made before the correct drawer was 'found' was predetermined, varying from 0 to 5. During the EL condition, every first attempt was correct (i.e., no errors were made). RESULTS: We found better overall performance in YA compared to OA and a beneficial effect of EL in both age groups. However, the amount of errors committed during learning did not influence accuracy of memory recall. CONCLUSION: Our results indicate that elimination of errors during learning can benefit memory performance in both YA and OA compared to TEL.

Authors 5

1. Inge Scheper corresponding

   Radboud University Nijmegen · Radboud University Medical Center · Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Medical Psychology, Radboud University Medical Center, Internal Post 925, PO Box 9101, 6500 HB, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. inge.scheper@radboudumc.nl

   Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. inge.scheper@radboudumc.nl

   Department of Medical Psychology, Radboud University Medical Center, Internal Post 925, PO Box 9101, 6500 HB, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

2. Inti Angelo Brazil

   Radboud University Nijmegen · Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour

   Affiliation as printed

   Division Diagnostics, Research, and Education, Forensic Psychiatric Center Pompestichting, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

   Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

3. Ellen R. A. de Bruijn Aachen Department of Clinical Psychology Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition

   Leiden University

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Clinical Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

   Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden, The Netherlands

4. Larissa Mulder-Hanekamp

   Radboud University Nijmegen

   Affiliation as printed

   School of Psychology, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

   Stumass, JADOS Foundation, Zwolle, The Netherlands

5. Roy P. C. Kessels

   Radboud University Nijmegen · Radboud University Medical Center · Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Medical Psychology, Radboud University Medical Center, Internal Post 925, PO Box 9101, 6500 HB, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

   Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

   Vincent Van Gogh Institute for Psychiatry, Venray, The Netherlands