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Abstract This study was concerned with the effect of varying the angular orientation of a display on the choice reaction times of two age groups ; a younger group ranging in age from 20 to 30 and an older group aged from 65 to 86. Two stimulus lights mounted on a vertical circular panel were rotated counterclockwise so that the lights formed angles of 0°, 45°, 90°, 135°, and 180° with the horizontal. Changing the spatial relationship of the stimulus lights relative to the fixed position of two response keys increased the complexity of the task and provided a means for testing the hypothesis that age differences in reaction time increase with increasing task difficulty. Results indicated significant differences in reaction time as a function of both display angle and age. With the least compatible display (180°), reaction time was slowed 30%. The role of spatial cues in the process of translating display information into control action was discussed. The predicted interaction of task difficulty and age was not significant.
Simon et al. (Tue,) studied this question.