Problem solving in elderly sophisticated and naive monkeys.
Elderly (greater than 23 years) rhesus monkeys, some of whom had previous learning test experience, were tested on a standardized battery of discrimination and concept-formation tasks, and their performance was compared with that of test-naive middle-aged (15 years) and juvenile (2 years) monkeys. Naive elderly monkeys performed more poorly on virtually all tasks compared to their younger counterparts. In contrast, test-experienced elderly monkeys outperformed both middle-aged and juvenile monkeys on those problem types with which they had limited previous experience, despite the fact that 8-10 years had passed since their prior training. However, test-experienced elderly monkeys did not display superior performance on new tests that approximated visual acuity or assessed delayed discrimination capabilities.
Novak
M A
MA
Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
Suomi
S J
SJ
Bowman
R E
RE
Mohr
D
D
D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D000818:Animals; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D008253:Macaca mulatta; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011340:Problem Solving; D011930:Reaction Time; D014792:Visual Acuity