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Psychology
and
Aging
1997,
Vol.
12,
No, 2,
247-254
Copyright 1997
by the
Americf
Effects
of
Familiarity
of
Task
and
Choice
on the
Functional
Performance
of
hunger
and
Older Adults
Anne
E.
Dickerson
East Carolina UniversityAnne
G.
Fisher
Colorado State University
An
experiment
was
conducted
to
compare
the
functional performance
of
younger
and
older adults
on
familiar
and
unfamiliar
tasks
under
2
conditions
of
perceived
control.
Specifically,
the
relation
between
age and
motor
and
process
skills
was
examined.
The
familiar tasks were simple cooking
tasks,
whereas
the
unfamiliar
tasks
were contrived, meaningless tasks
developed
for
this study.
%unger
and
older
adults
did not
differ
in the
ratings
of the
familiarity
of the
tasks,
but
results
from
2 Age X
Task
X
Choice analyses
of
variance demonstrated
a
significant
age
difference
for
motor
and
process
skills
under
all
conditions- This
suggests
that older adults demonstrate
age-related
decline,
even
with activities that take motivational, experiential,
and
ecological
validity components into
account.
For the
process
skills scale, there
was
also
a
significant
main
effect
for
choice.
These
results
support
the
concept that perceived control
may
improve performance,
but not
differentially
for
older
adults;
that
is,
younger
and
older adults both demonstrated improved
process
performance when
given their choice
of
tasks.
Although
there
is not
consensus concerning
the
mechanisms
underlying
cognitive age-related differences, research studies
have shown
significant
age-related differences
in
many mea-
sures
of
cognitive performance. Therefore,
it
could
be
hypothe-
sized
that cognitive deficiencies among older adults would
be
translated
into
decreased performances during
functional
daily
living
tasks. However, there
is
evidence that
limits
this
hypothesis.
Motivation
may
affect
an
older adult's performance, particu-
larly
if the
tasks
are
meaningless
and
unfamiliar
(Botwinick,
1984).
When
ecologically
valid tasks
are
used,
the
detrimental
effect
of age is not
always
observed
(Kirasic,
1990, 1991;
Sharps
&
Gollin,
1987).
The
results
of
laboratory studies
may
not
generalize
to
performance
of
everyday tasks because these
studies
emphasize perceptual thresholds
and use
unfamiliar,
un-
practiced tasks
(Charness
&
Bosman,
1994).
Because extensive
experience
or
expertise
is
believed
to
compensate
or
overshadow
the
negative
effects
of
aging
on
functional
performance,
the
argument
can be
made that older adults
may do
relatively better
when
performing ecologically relevant tasks
of
daily living
be-
cause they
are
routinely practiced
as
compared with performing
traditional problem-solving tasks (Bosman, 1993; Geary,
Frensch,
&
Wiley, 1993; Salthouse, 1985). That
is,
there
is a
difference
between
the
older adults' cognitive
abilities
in
tradi-
Anne
E.
Dickerson, Department
of
Occupational Therapy, East Caro-
lina
University; Anne
G.
Fisher, Department
of
Occupational Therapy,
Colorado State University.
This study
was
supported
in
part
by a
grant
from
the
American
Occupational
Therapy Foundation.
Correspondence concerning this article should
be
addressed
to
Anne
E.
Dickerson, Department
of
Occupational
Therapy,
East
Carolina Uni-
versity,
Greenville, North Carolina
27858-4353.
Electronic
mail
may be
sent
via
Internet
to
dicker@ecuvm.cis.ecu.edu.
tional
laboratory
studies
and
cognitive
competence
in
occupa-
tional
and
daily
living
activities
(Salthouse,
1990).
There
are
other studies, however, which suggest that although
life
experiences
(or
practice)
may
compensate
for
age-related
decline
in
older adults,
it may not be
great enough
to
bring
the
older adults' level
of
performance
up to
that
of
younger adults,
even
when
those tasks
are
designed
to
give
the
older adult
an
advantage (Denney,
Tozier,
&
Schlotthauer,
1992; Dixon,
Kurz-
man,
&
Friesen, 1993; Lindenberger,
Kliegl,
&
Bates, 1992).
Still other studies have suggested that expertise neither mediates
nor
moderates age-related differences
(Salthouse,
1991; Salt-
house,
Babock,
Skovronek, Mitchell,
&
Palmon, 1990; Salt-
house
&
Mitchell,
1990).
Finally,
two
studies (Morrow,
Leirer,
&
Altieri,
1992; Morrow,
Leirer,
Altieri,
&
Fitzsimmons,
1994) investigating aviation expertise
in
young
and old
pilots
suggest that expertise compensates
for
age-related
decline only
if
the
task
is
highly domain relevant. Therefore, studies investi-
gating
whether expertise
or
practice compensates
for
age-related
decline
must
examine
the
tasks closely
for
relevancy
and
amount
of
experience.
Additionally,
there have been discrepancies
in
performance
outcomes when comparing dissimilar types
of
measures
and
abilities.
It has
been recognized that there
is a
need
to
develop
assessments that measure
domain-specific
functional
abilities
(Diehl,
Willis,
&
Schaie, 1995). When
Marsiske
and
Willis
(1995)
compared three
different
measures
of
everyday-practi-
cal
problem solving
with
older
adults, they
found
that although
measures were internally consistent, they
had
little
relationship
between
each other. Thus,
they
suggested that older adults' per-
formance
of
daily
living
tasks would
be
more adequately con-
ceptualized
as a
multidimensional phenomenon rather than
a
single global construct
and
investigators should
be
more precise
about
the
aspects
or
dimensions
of
problem
solving that they
are
studying.
Because
functional
tasks
of
daily
living
are
practiced daily,
247
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