Abstract
We examined the impact of age upon learning a manual assembly task in the presence of visual and auditory distractors in males and females ranging in age between 18 and 65 years. Task learning, as measured by time to asymptote as well as error rate. Both metrics were affected by distractors when both auditory and visual distraction loads were present, and only in older subjects who possessed low spatial reasoning ability. Older subjects who possessed excellent spatial reasoning capability performed competitively with younger subjects. Recommendations for use of spatial reasoning and field dependence in future aging-related psychomotor task learning research are provided and practical use of these findings are discussed.
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