Looking, Sequential Redundancy, Transfer, and Age in Early Keyboard Learning

Abstract

Groups of older and younger subjects were given one-hour sessions on a simple keyboard task. In the first experiment the major variable was the extent to which subjects could see what they were doing while carrying out a 5- or 10-alternative task. In the second experiment subjects performed the task with a positional or an alphabet in-line display using either a completely random or a structured input sequence. In the third experiment, the effect of pre-training on a positional display on subsequent performance with an alphabet in-line display was examined. It was found that both older and younger subjects made more errors when they could not see either keyboard or their hands; that older subjects could take advantage of sequential redundancy only when using an alphabet in-line display; and that older subjects did not benefit from positional display pre-training.