Age differences in response time to verbal and symbolic traffic signs

Abstract

It is well established that verbal skills are maintained at a high level into old age while visuo-spatial skills begin to decline at an earlier age. It was hypothesized that the elderly would therefore respond more quickly to verbal traffic signs than to symbolic ones. In a test of this hypothesis, response times (RT's) to symbolic and verbal traffic signs were obtained from subjects in two age groups (19–29 and 65–77 years). While the elderly responded more slowly than the young subjects, they were an average of .2 seconds quicker in response to verbal traffic signs than symbolic ones. There were no differences in RT for symbolic and verbal signs for the young subjects. It is clear that the impact of traffic signs changes on the elderly deserves more attention than it is currently being given.