Incentives as a Treatment Variable for Facilitation Performance of Elderly Adults on Concrete Piagetian Tasks

Abstract

Reduced cognitive functioning of older adults is viewed by some researchers as mainly a problem of performance rather than of competence. To further explore this issue, the present study assessed performance of 52 elderly subjects on Piagetian tasks, with or without provision of incentives as a motivating condition. Although the incentive group scored higher than the no-incentive group on all tasks, differences did not reach significance. Contrary to the expected pattern, conservation of volume scores were higher than conservation of surface area scores. One interpretation is that elderly adults might be more influenced than younger age groups by extrinsic properties of conservation task stimuli. Implications of these and other findings for further research with the elderly are discussed.