Age-related changes in perceptual and psychomotor performance: implications for engineering design

Increased age is associated with declines in perceptual and psychomotor performance. We review several surveys of health and disability that provide functional descriptions on population trends in vision, hearing, fitness, mobility, and agility that complement laboratory studies of perceptual threshold functions. Women report and exhibit significantly greater disability than men (the exceptions being disabilities associated with hearing and flexibility), with the disability progression accelerating with age. For the growing proportion of older adults in the labor force, visual improvements can be achieved through improved lighting, increased size of visual detail, and glare avoidance. For hearing, restricting the frequency of sounds to the 1000- to 2000-Hz range, minimizing background noise, and eliminating reverberation seem prudent. For the retired population, emphasis should be placed on minimizing disability by promoting greater use of assistive devices and environmental redesign. Future laboratory studies of perceptual and psychomotor functions should attempt to sample more representatively and target underrepresented groups of older adults. New field studies are needed to bridge the gap between survey self-reports and laboratory studies and to determine the cost and benefits of redesign.