Ageing and perceptual-based decision-making in traffic environments

According to ecological psychology, decisions on when and how we act is achieved through the detection of information specifying affordances; the fit between an actor’s action possibilities and their environment. As a result, errors in decision-making may derive from an unanticipated actualization of what the environment affords.

While recent research has aimed to understand how changes in physical limitations of individuals influence their perception of what the environment affords them, little research has investigated how changes during life span influence sensitivity to specifying information, and how these may impact upon action decisions.<br><br>In a series of interlinking studies using virtual traffic environments, different age groups were investigated in their ability to: tune into action-relevant information in the optical array, use such information to guide both the choice of behaviour and the continuous guidance of action, and re-educate attention to specifying or non-specifying action information.