Toward an Understanding of Age-Related use of Incidental Consistency

Abstract

Skill acquisition studies have found that, with extensive practice, performance can become surprisingly specific to “incidental” features of the training environment - that is, features or relationships that need not be processed to perform the task. Furthermore, studies of aging and “incidental learning” have often shown an age-related deficit in recalling non-content features of stimuli. Two studies examined the role of consistent incidental features in extensive training of a skill, first in a visual search skill and then in a logical reasoning skill. In both studies, incidental features that correlated with correct actions (with varying degrees of consistency) were present in training. These features were then removed or changed in transfer conditions. Changes to these features were disruptive, primarily for younger adults. These results indicate that performance after training can become sensitive to consistent incidental information. However, older adults seem to be less sensitive to this information than younger adults. These results are important to consider when providing supplemental environmental support for complex tasks, or when planning changes to a task environment that occur after extensive practice.