AGE-DIFFERENCES IN CALIBRATION OF COMPREHENSION

Young adults have been shown to predict their reading comprehension (c alibration of comprehension [CC]) based on subjective assessments of b oth their ease in processing text and their levels of comprehension. P redictions based on a processing ease heuristic are likely cognitively simpler than those based on assessing comprehension directly. Thus, w e hypothesized that older adults base test predictions more on the sim pler task of evaluating processing ease and tested whether this prefer ence was related to their diminished working memory capacity. Young an d older adults read texts, predicted performance, and evaluated their processing ease and comprehension level. Although both groups showed s imilar CC, older adults' CC was significantly related to evaluating pr ocessing ease, whereas young adults' CC was related to evaluating comp rehension. This difference was not associated with working memory capa city, suggesting that older adults' reliance on evaluating processing ease was not due to cognitive difficulties in judging comprehension di rectly.