Age-Related Differences in Learning Incidental, Environmental Information

Abstract

Incidental task structure is consistent, potentially beneficial, information that is not necessary for successful task performance (i.e., is seemingly unrelated to the task). The authors investigated whether incidental task structure was differentially beneficial to younger and older adults. Across three experiments, 122 participants searched for targets among stimuli laid upon different patterns, such that certain patterns correlated with target location at varying degrees of consistency. An age-related difference was identified in the ability to learn an incidental structure under certain conditions and a strategy explanation for the difference was investigated. When older adults' were encouraged to orient at least some degree of attention toward the predictive information, learning occurred. Older adults are capable of learning incidental, environmental information but their learning was not identical to younger adults'. Younger adults showed performance benefits when provided with incidental task structure, but older adults may need to be made explicitly aware before it is useful.

Acknowledgments

Experiment 1 was part of Beth Meyer's Ph.D. dissertation and Experiment 3 was part of Timothy A. Nichols' MS thesis. Portions of this research were presented at the 109th Annual APA Convention, San Francisco, 2001; at the 17th World Congress of the International Association of Gerontology, Vancouver, 2001; and at the 49th annual meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, Orlando, 2005 (Caine, Nichols, Fisk, & Rogers, 2005).

This research was supported in part by grants from the National Institutes of Health (National Institute on Aging): grant P01 AG17211 under the auspices of the Center for Research and Education on Aging and Technology Enhancement (CREATE) and grant R01 AG18177. The authors thank Emanuel Robinson, Don Fisher, and Jim Howard for their helpful comments on previous versions of this manuscript. The authors would also like to thank Rachael Stewart for her assistance with data collection and entry.

Notes

*Indicates significant age-related difference, p < .05.

^a Number correct.

^b In ms (>0 but ≤30: normal central vision and processing speed; >30 but ≤60: normal central vision but somewhat slowed processing speed).

^c In ms (>0 but <100: normal divided attention ability; ≥100 but <350: some difficult with divided attention).

^d In ms (>0 but <350: indicates normal selective attention).

Note. For a single instance of the counterbalance, stimulus set (target set T1; environment set E1) and the reversal of environmental consistency levels transfer condition from Experiments 1 and 3. The transfer condition depicts shape consistencies remaining constant from training, whereas environmental consistencies are reversed.