title: The effect of individual differences in working memory in older adults on performance with different degrees of automated technology.
abstract: A leading hypothesis to explain older adults' overdependence on automation is age-related declines in working memory. However, it has not been empirically examined. The purpose of the current experiment was to examine how working memory affected performance with different degrees of automation in older adults. In contrast to the well-supported idea that higher degrees of automation, when the automation is correct, benefits performance but higher degrees of automation, when the automation fails, increasingly harms performance, older adults benefited from higher degrees of automation when the automation was correct but were not differentially harmed by automation failures. Surprisingly, working memory did not interact with degree of automation but did interact with automation correctness or failure. When automation was correct, older adults with higher working memory ability had better performance than those with lower abilities. But when automation was incorrect, all older adults, regardless of working memory ability, performed poorly. Practitioner Summary: The design of automation intended for older adults should focus on ways of making the correctness of the automation apparent to the older user and suggest ways of helping them recover when it is malfunctioning.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , Clemson University , Clemson , SC , USA.
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Pak
authors.affiliation: b Department of Psychology , North Carolina State University , Raleigh , NC , USA.
authors.forename: Anne Collins
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: McLaughlin
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , Clemson University , Clemson , SC , USA.
authors.forename: William
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Leidheiser
authors.affiliation: c Department of Behavioral Sciences & Leadership , U.S. Military Academy , West Point , NY , USA.
authors.forename: Ericka
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Rovira
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D001331:Automation / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008297:Male; D008328:Man-Machine Systems; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D000066477:Work Performance
keywords: Working memory; automation bias; complacency; degree of automation; older adults; trust