Belief Bias Effect In Older Adults

Belief bias is the tendency to rely on prior beliefs rather than to obey fully the logical principles in syllogistic reasoning.Few studies have investigated the age effect on belief bias.When conclusion believability does not conflict with beliefs(congruent conditions),syllogistic reasoning is boosted by beliefs.When conclusion believability conflicts with beliefs(incongruent conditions),beliefs will hamper syllogistic reasoning.According to dual-process theories,older adults would be less likely to use analytic strategies and easily affected by prior beliefs due to the influence of aging,and the performance of syllogistic reasoning would be declined.Present researches aim to investigate belief bias effect in older adults and the psychological mechanisms underlying such effect.A total of 107 elderly subjects were selected in Study 1.They were divided into chess group,mahjong group and control group according to their daily cognitive exercise preferences,and explored the cognition of the elderly in different preference groups in the syllogistic reasoning task.which performed.It was found that under inconsistent conditions,the elderly in the chess group had the highest accuracy rate,followed by the mahjong group,and the control group had the lowest.However,under consistent conditions,the accuracy rate of the mahjong group was lower than the chess group,and there was no difference between the cotrol group and the chess group,as well as the mahjong group.The results show that the belief bias effect of the elderly in the chess group is theweakest,the belief bias effect of the elderly in the mahjong group is medium,and the control group exhibits the strongest belief bias effect.The results of the intermediary analysis found that there was a difference in the level of cognitive needs of the elderly in different groups.The elderly in the chess group were the highest,the Mahjong group was the second,and the control group was the lowest.The results show that cognitive needs play a significant mediating role between different test groups and accuracy.In order to further explore the underlying psychological mechanism of the belief bias effect in the elderly,Study 2expands the age range of the subject group,using young people as a control group,and explores the belief bias effect and cognitive needs and working memory of the elderly in the age and accuracy rate.Intermediary role.It was found that under inconsistent conditions,older people showed lower accuracy rates than young people.However,under consistent conditions,older people show higher accuracy rates than young people.The results of the mediation analysis found that under inconsistencies,age negatively predicted cognitive needs and working memory,cognitive needs positively predicted correct rates,and working memory also positively predicted correct rates.However,under the condition of consistency,age negatively predicts cognitive needs and working memory,and cognitive needs positively predicts the accuracy of inference,but working memory has no significant effect.The results indicate that underinconsistent conditions,cognitive needs and working memory play a mediating role between the effects of age and belief bias.However,under the condition of consistency,cognitive needs play an intermediary role in the correctness of age kernel reasoning,but working memory has no significant effect.The results demonstrated that the cognitive exercise preference of the elderly can significantly affect the belief bias effect of the elderly,and the need for cognition and working memory are the underlying psychological mechanisms of the belief bias effect in the elderly.