The influence of setting and task partner on the performance of adults over age 65 on a communications task

The present study was an investigation of the influence of two methodological variables on the performance of adults sixty-four to seventy-nine years old. Participants gave directions on a map reading task to a peer (similar aged) partner and a non-peer (younger) partner. Testing was conducted in either the laboratory or the participants' homes. Contrary to expectations, communication performances with the non-peer required less time and fewer utterances, morphemes, repetitions and start overs than with the peer. The influence of setting was apparent only in the number of attention cues used, with the more distracting home setting requiring more attention cues to maintain partner attention.