Previous Studies and Research

Aviation Expertise, Aging, and Memory

We developed a laboratory analog of air-ground communication in earlier studies (Morrow et al, 2000). Participants listen to a set of ATC messages (with instructions to change aircraft heading, altitude, or speed) that describe a route through an airspace, while refering to a chart of the airspace. They read back the instructions from each message and then answer a question about where the aircraft would be if the instructions had been executed. Pilots in our studies have rated the readback and probe tasks as similar to flying. Nonpilots as well as pilots participate so that we can examine the impact of expertise on age effects. We also vary the difficulty of the task by changing the length and organization of the ATC messages or by varying the opportunity for pilots to reduce memory demands by taking notes.

A clear finding is that older pilots are able to take advantage of aviation-typical aids to reduce memory demands (Morrow et al, 2001). For example, participants in our last study were allowed to take notes while listening to half of the messages, while they had to rely on their memory for the other messages. Readback accuracy was virtually perfect for pilots regardless of age when they could take notes, while there was still an age-related decline in accuracy for nonpilots. Without notes, pilots and nonpilots showed similar declines in accuracy. This finding (and others) underlines the importance of external support for maintaining superior performance by older pilots. In other words, expertise depends on the skilled use of the environment as well as having knowledge in the head.

We have also investigated the impact of Air Traffic Control message characteristics on pilot communication. In a study funded by the FAA, we investigated grouped vs sequential formats for numerical information such as altitudes (Morrow & Prinzo, 1999). More generally, we have investigated a range of problems associated with voice communication between pilots and controllers (Morrow & Rodvold, 1998) and compared computer data link vs. voice communication between pilots and controllers (McGann, Morrow, Rodvold, & Macintosh, 1998). This latter project was funded by NASA Ames Research Center.

Memory Search

We have also examined how quickly and accurately pilots learn ATC information and retrieve it from their memory, using a standard memory search task. This study finds some evidence that older pilots search their short-term memory as well as younger pilots do, while nonpilots show typical age-related slowing in this process.

Designing Automated Appointment Messages

Our previous studies find that older and younger adults tend to share schemas for organizing appointment information and that appointment messages are more accurately understood and remembered when organized in terms of these schemas (Morrow, Leirer, Carver, & Tanke, 2000). Repeating messages (a routine feature of automated messaging systems) further improves memory and reduces age differences in recall when repetition is experimenter-imposed (Morrow, Leirer, Carver, Tanke, &McNally, 1999a). While optional repetition also improves memory, it does not reduce age differences, perhaps because optional features of messaging systems increase self-initiated processing (Morrow, Leirer, Carver, Tanke, & McNally, 1999b). We are now investigating whether well designed messages help older adults remember to attend appointments.

Designing Medication Instructions

Failure to take medication as prescribed is a serious healthcare problem for people of all ages, including older adults. This problem is in part to poor communication. People often do not receive adequate instructions for taking their medication. We investigated the design of expanded medication instructions. These instructions present more information than medication labels and are often provided by pharmacists with new prescriptions. Our goal has been to design instructions that are more complete (and thus longer) than labels, but are still understood by older adults.

Older and younger adults share schemas for organizing medication information into instructions, and instructions are better remembered when organized to fit these schemas (Morrow, Leirer, Andrassy, Tanke, & Stine-Morrow, 1996; Morrow, Leirer, Carver, & Tanke 2000). These instructions are also better remembered when presented as a list rather than paragraph (Morrow, Leirer, Andrassy, Hier, & Menard, 1998) and when they contain a visual icon that explicitly conveys medication dose and time information (Morrow, Hier, Menard, & Leirer, 1998).

Aging and Narrative Comprehension

We find that older adults are just as likely as younger adults to create situation models from narratives. Furthermore, they use similar strategies to create these representations. In addition, more successful older readers appear to allocate cognitive resources more effectively when reading in order to create situation models (Morrow, Stine-Morrow, Leirer, Andrassy, & Kahn, 1997).

Recent References

Morrow, D.G. (2000). Patient compliance. In W.E. Craighead & C.B. Nemeroff (eds.), Encyclopedia of Psychology and Neuroscience (third Ed.). New York, NY: John Wiley. to appear.

Morrow, D.G (2000). Situation models and perspective in narrative understanding: Reader and narrative factors. In S. Chatman & W. van Peer (Eds.), New perspectives on narrative perspective (pp.225-239). New York: State University of New York Press.

Morrow, D.G., Leirer, V.O., Carver, L.M., & Tanke, E.D. (2000). Medication schemas and memory for automated telephone messages. Human Factors, 42, 523-540.

Morrow, D.G., Menard, W.E., Stine-Morrow, E.A.L., Teller, T., & Bryant, D. (2001). The influence of task factors and expertise on age differences in pilot communication. Psychology and Aging, 16, 31-46.

Morrow, D. & Leirer, V. (1999). Designing medication instructions for older adults. In D. Park, R. Morrell, & K. Shifren (Eds.), Aging patients and medical treatment: An information-processing perspective(pp 249-265). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Morrow, D.G., Leirer, V.O., Carver, L.M., Tanke, E.D, & McNally, A. (1999). Effects of aging, message repetition, and note-taking on memory for health information. Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences. 54B, pp369-379.

Morrow, D.G., Leirer, V.O., Carver, L.M., Tanke, E.D, & McNally, A. (1999). Repetition improves older and younger adult memory for automated appointment messages. Human Factors. 41, 194-204.

Morrow, D., Menard, W., & Stine-Morrow (1999). Expertise and aging in pilot communication: The role of environmental support. Proceedings of the 43rd Annual Meeting of the Human Factors & Ergonomics Society. Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors & Ergonomics Society.

McGann, A., Morrow, D., Rodvold, M., & Mackintosh, M. (1998). Mixed media communication on the flightdeck: A comparison of voice, data link, and mixed ATC environments. International Journal of Aviation Psychology. 8, 137-156.

Morrow, D., Hier, C., Menard, W., & Leirer, V. (1998). Icons improve older and younger adult comprehension of expanded medication information. Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences. 53B,240-254.

Morrow, D., Leirer, V., Andrassy, J., Hier, C., & Menard, W. (1998). The influence of list format and category headers on age differences in understanding medication instructions, Experimental Aging Research. 24, 231-256.

Morrow, D., Leirer, V.O., Carver, L.M., & Tanke, E.D. (1998). Older and younger adult memory for health appointment information: Implications for automated telephone messaging design. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. 4, 352-374.

Morrow, D. & Rodvold, M. (1998). Communication issues in Air Traffic Control. in M. Smolensky & E. Stein (Eds.), Human Factors in Air Traffic Control (pp 421-456). New York, Academic Press.