Participants
dementia
To our knowledge, no relevant prior studies exist that evaluate the effects of a knowledge intervention on older adults’ segmentation ability. While Blasing reported significant intervention effects in college students (Experiment 2), no effect sizes or measures of variance were reportedParticipants aged 65–85 years were recruited from an online database maintained by the Memory and Aging lab at Kansas State University as well as through various local and national volunteer organizations. A total of 80 older adults (56 women, 24 men) participated with an overall average age of 71 years (Table Demographic information by workshop group.24 females/14 males63.15% Females32 females/10 males76.2% FemalesEducation = average number of years of education; MoCA = average score on the mini-MoCA test; Semantic fluency = average number of items produced on category and letter fluency measures (measured at pre-test and post-test).Figure Flow of participants through the experimental design.The survey was designed by the expert responsible for instructing each workshop. It was composed of nineteen (Tai chi) and twenty (gyoza-making) multiple choice questions, which were based on the materials that were going to be covered during the training workshops. No feedback on the scores was provided to participants regarding correct answers nor their scores. All topics in the expertise survey were taught during the respective workshops. Participants would then retake the expertise survey during the last portion of this study to evaluate learning from the workshops.Two-hundred and twenty-five participants completed the survey but sixty-four of those scored higher than our cutoff score (> 10 correct answers for each activity).They were deemed too knowledgeable and were excluded. Participants that scored less than 60% correct in a test were deemed novices.If a potential participant was deemed a novice in both activities, a research assistant scheduled a phone call to determine whether the participant was cognitively healthy and physically able to participate in the activities. The phone screening lasted approximately thirty minutes and covered questions related to demographics, medical history, contact information, and two brief dementia screening measures: AD8 (score > 2 = ineligible)