Altering mindset can enhance motor learning in older adults.

Abstract

Beliefs about personal capability have been shown to affect performance. Lowered ability expectations due to older age may themselves contribute to a decline in performance. In the present study, we investigated whether enhancing older adults' performance expectancies would facilitate the learning of a novel balance task. In Experiment 1, providing older women (71 years) with fabricated feedback indicating that their performance was above average reduced their ability-related concerns and nervousness, and resulted in more effective balance learning, compared with a control group. In Experiment 2, also involving older women (64 years), a simple statement made at the beginning of practice, suggesting that their peers usually do well on that task, enhanced participants' self-efficacy and learning of the task. These results demonstrate that motor performance and learning in older age can be influenced quickly and positively by enhancing individuals' ability perceptions.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 139 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.