Coordination: Prof. Dr. med. Michael Falkenstein
Cooperating research groups
Transformed movements, Ageing and CNS alterations, Flexible behaviour control, Modern human-machine systems
The percentage of older employees is increasing in Germany and other European countries. At the same time there is tendency towards early retirement. The combination of both developments results in crises of social-security systems and, in several branches, in difficulties to recruit qualified and efficient labour. It is thus important to examine whether the generally negative attitudes towards older workers are justified from a physiological-psychological perspective. In particular it is necessary to identify not only the weaknesses, but also the strengths of the older workforce. In several laboratory tasks the performance of the elderly is in fact impaired, but such impairments are generally not found with respect to job performance.
The design of age-related workplaces needs a foundation of basic cognitive and neurophysiological research. At the core is the question which particular cognitive functions change in the course of adult age and in which ways the involvement of various functions in the performance of certain tasks changes. From an applied perspective, the question has to be answered which tasks profit from age-related changes and which tasks suffer, that is, which tasks are particularly suited for older or younger employees, respectively. At a more global level one wants to know which organizational, technical, and social conditions support performance and health throughout the process of ageing. In particular there may be training procedures or types of technological assistance which positively affect the age-related changes.
At several of these levels of analysis research of the IfADo will contribute to solutions of the problems related to an ageing workforce. The research of this intergroup research initiative focuses on cognitive functions. Three of the participating research groups study age-related changes of elementary and executive cognitive functions, namely preparation, visual perception and attention, and motor control. This covers an important set of those functions that change with age. The fourth participating research group complements the functional orientation by a more applied and organizational perspective.
Within the framework of the intergroup research initiative the research group "Modern human-machine systems" studies age-related changes of visual-spatial attention in 2D and 3D. In addition to behavioural measures, event-related brain potentials are used which reflect temporal and intensive aspects of attentional processes. Visual-spatial attention is of high practical relevance for many jobs and everyday activities as driving a car.
The research group "Aeging and CNS alterations" focuses an age-related changes of work-related cognitive processes, in particular of executive processes. Again event-related brain potentials are used in addition to behavioural measure. Of particular interest are compensatory processes, like enhanced preparation, that the elderly invoke under certain conditions and/or with certain tasks. Preparatory processes are hard to assess by means of behavioural measures, but they can fairly directly be measured in terms of ERPs.
The research group "Transformed movements" studies transformations imposed by tools; an example is the transformation of the movements of a computer mouse in the motion of a cursor on a monitor. In particular the group explores the conditions under which age-related variations in learning to deal with novel transformations can be found.
The research group "Flexible behaviour control" complements the functional approach by a more practical-organizational one. What are the strengths and weaknesses of working groups which are heterogeneous with respect to age? The goal is to find answers to this question with respect to motivation, performance, and health by means of studying existing groups. Additional variables like cognitive salience of age-related differences and attitudes toward heterogeneity are assessed to be able to account for variable effects of are-related heterogeneity.