Effect of distractors, age, and level of education upon psychomotor task learning

Learning new manual assembly or procedures in the presence of distractions is common across industry. This research investigated the impact of age and years of formal education upon learning a manual assembly task in the presence of visual and auditory distractors in males and females ranging in age between 18 and 65 years. Subject age was significant in all analyses of learning metrics, with the oldest subjects’ performance particularly affected by the dual distractor condition. Learning, as evidenced by significant regression functions, was demonstrated only in the no distraction condition. Results indicate that reduction or elimination of irrelevant verbal or visuospatial distractors, comparable to those studied, could benefit older workers during early learning of psychomotor tasks.