EDUCATION,TASK MEANINGFULNESS,AND COGNITIVE PERFORMANCE IN YOUNG‐OLD AND OLD‐OLD ADULTS

Previous research has indicated that when tasks are made more meaningful, the performance of the elderly generally improves. A closer look, however, reveals that improvement occurs mostly for educationally disadvantaged elderly, highly educated older adults not benefiting differentially from meaningful material. Consequently, the present study compared performance of high‐ and low‐education adults on traditional and meaningful space and reasoning measures. A total of 246 male and female volunteers were divided into subgroups by age (53‐65 and 70‐78 years) and by education (high and low). Separate analyses of variance for reasoning and space revealed main effects for education and age on both abilities. In addition, main effects for test and sex, and a significant age by test interaction were found for space, with the performance differential between the familiar and traditional tests being much greater for the young‐old group. A trend for an education X age X test X sex interaction was found for reasoning, as expected, with low education, young‐old men doing more poorly on the traditional form. Suggestions for future related research are discussed.