Age and compatibility effects on steering error and reaction time performance: Evidence from a coal mine shuttle car simulator

As the workforce ages, it is becoming increasingly important to understand how older adults adapt to, and learn, new tasks. This experiment examines the performance of 15 young (20-36 years) and 15 older male (54-64 years) adults in a virtual analogy of an underground coal mine shuttle car - a vehicle in which the relationship between direction of steering wheel movement and vehicle steering direction varies with direction of vehicle motion. In the first stage of the experiment, steering compatibility alternated trial by trial. In the second stage, the steering relationship remained compatible throughout. Stage one incompatible trials were slower than compatible for both groups, however, there was no difference in reaction time in stage two. No improvement in reaction time was evident in either stage, and no reaction time difference was evident between the groups. Although both groups displayed a compatibility effect for errors in both stages, and performance improved over time (in both stages), the older adults had a higher error rate, particularly in incompatible trials. This age effect persisted in the second stage during which all trials were compatible. The results suggest that older adults respond as quickly as the younger adults, but at the cost of increased errors, and that they may be at a greater disadvantage than younger adults when they are required to learn a visuomotor task which is not consistently compatible