Younger but Not Older Adults Benefit from Salient Feedback during Learning

Older adults are impaired in reinforcement learning (RL) when feedback is partially ambiguous (e.g., Eppinger and Kray, 2011). In this study we examined whether older adults benefit from salient feedback information during learning. We used an electrophysiological approach and investigated 15 younger and 15 older adults with a RL task in which they had to learn stimulus–response associations under two learning conditions. In the positive learning conditions, participants could gain 50 Cents for a correct response but did not gain or lose money (*00 Cent) for an incorrect response. In negative learning conditions, they could lose 50 Cents for an incorrect response but did not gain or lose money (*00 Cent) for a correct response. As the identical outcome “00 Cent” is either better or worse than the alternative outcome depending on the learning condition, this feedback type is ambiguous. To examine the influence of feedback salience we compared this condition with a condition in which positive and negative outcomes were color-coded and thereby clearly separable. The behavioral results indicated that younger adults reached higher accuracy levels under salient feedback conditions. Moreover, the error-related negativity and the feedback-related negativity for losses were larger if the good–bad dimension of feedback was salient. Hence, in younger adults salient feedback facilitates the rapid evaluation of outcomes on a good–bad dimension and by this supports learning. In contrast, for older adults we obtained neither behavioral nor electrophysiological effects of feedback salience. The older adults’ performance monitoring system therefore appears less flexible in integrating additional information in this evaluation process.