| The relationships between age, prior knowledge, working memory resources, vocabulary, and control preference in medical decision-making, information search behavior, and decision rationale are examined in a sample of 117 men across the adult lifespan (ages 20 to 87). Participants worked through a hypothetical, web-based prostate cancer treatment decision which unfolded as they proceeded through various stages of the decision process. Individual correlations indicated that age, working memory resources, vocabulary, and control preference significantly predicted the amount of information men sought during the decision. The hypotheses that age effects on information search behavior and decision quality would be fully mediated by vocabulary, working memory, control preference, and prior knowledge were not supported. When these variables were considered simultaneously, age and vocabulary were the only significant predictors of information search. This indicated that younger men and those with greater vocabulary sought more information on which to base a treatment decision. Decision quality, was predicted by age, working memory, prior knowledge, and the amount of information men sought during the decision task. Men who were younger, had more working memory resources, more prior knowledge, and who invested in greater amounts of information search produced decision rationales which considered more pieces of information and contained more comparisons between ideas. Age directly and indirectly affected differences in quality of decision rationale. These indirect effects resulted through age-related changes in working memory, prior knowledge, and information search. |
