Age-related differences in learning incidental, environmental information.

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.

Hazards in the home: using older adults' perceptions to inform warning design.

Older adults' perceptions of hazards associated with home product usage and beliefs about product warnings were assessed. Focus group interview data were coded along the dimensions of (a) product type; (b) hazard type; (c) hazard knowledge; (d) hazard avoidance; (e) product warning presence; and (f) product warning necessity. A survey supplemented the focus group results by gathering measures of usage patterns and usability difficulties associated with various types of household products. Older adults reported routine use of products they considered to be hazardous and identified an array of home safety concerns. Furthermore, personal experience was an important source of older adults' hazard knowledge and they described a number of hazard avoidance strategies. These data provide insight into older adults' home safety behaviour and suggest a number of approaches to improving hazard communication and warning design.