Age-Related Differences in Learning Incidental Environmental Information

Abstract

Incidental environmental information is consistent, potentially beneficial, information that is not necessary for successful task performance (i.e., is seemingly unrelated to the task). In the present study, older and younger participants searched for target letters among distractor letters both of which were laid upon color environments, such that certain color environments predictively correlated with target letter location at varying degrees of consistency. Neither group could express verbal knowledge of the pattern of the environmental information although younger but not older adults showed improved performance in conditions where incidental information cued target location. The findings suggest that younger adults can benefit from incidental environmental information even when they cannot express that it is present in a task but that older adults may need additional cues to benefit from the information.