The joint contribution of participation and performance to learning functions: Exploring the effects of age in large-scale data sets

Large-scale data sets from online training and game platforms offer the opportunity for more extensive and more precise investigations of human learning than is typically achievable in the laboratory. However, because people make their own choices about participation, any investigation into learning using these data sets must simultaneously model performance–that is, the learning function–and participation. Using a data set of 54 million gameplays from the online brain training site Lumosity , we show that learning functions of participants are systematically biased by participation policies that vary with age. Older adults who are poorer performers are more likely to drop out than older adults who perform well. Younger adults show no such effect. Using this knowledge, we can extrapolate group learning functions that correct for these age-related differences in dropout.