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AbstractIn more complex outdoor–indoor transition scenarios, people were more prone to getting lost due to difficulties in effectively integrating proprioceptive cues and external navigation cues. Previous research had mostly focused on spatial perception driven by head or limb movements, with less discussion on locomotion methods that involved significant visual discrepancies. The challenge in designing navigation systems lies in balancing the enhancement of wayfinding performance with the potential negative impact on spatial cognition. We believe that navigation legibility might be a key optimization approach. Additionally, the differences in performance between different age groups were also worth investigating. Therefore, this study aimed to explore how locomotion methods and navigation legibility affected wayfinding performance, navigation interaction, navigation regression, and spatial cognition in younger and older adults during outdoor–indoor transition scenarios. Twenty-four younger (aged 19–27) and 24 older adults (aged 60–83) underwent VR wayfinding tasks. Participants initially followed virtual phone navigation from outdoor starting points to indoor endpoints, then drew cognitive route maps. Five main findings emerged: Continuous teleportation positively affected navigation performance and global representation of routes. Improving navigation legibility boosted navigation interaction, navigation regression, and global representation of routes. Older adults engaged more in navigation interaction but less in navigation regression, exhibiting poorer performance and route representation. Location-specific differences were observed in locomotion, legibility, and age effects. Furthermore, most older adults and over half of younger adults displayed a deflection effect based on outdoor–indoor (OI) space in route representation. These findings indicated that continuous teleportation and enhanced navigation legibility could improve user experience and spatial cognition, highlighting the importance of considering user age and the characteristics of outdoor–indoor transition scenarios when optimizing navigation methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Handwriting is widely used by Chinese older adults for text input on touch screens, but their handwriting performance is relatively low in comparison to younger adults. Therefore, this study investigated how the size of the input box (15%, 30%, and 45% of the display), input method (fingers and stylus), display size (4.7 inches and 7.9 inches), and age (younger adults and older adults) influence Chinese handwriting performance and user experience. An experiment was conducted among 72 participants. A system was developed to automatically record the time of handwriting, the accuracy of handwriting, the number of protruding strokes, the number of rewritings. Besides, participants' satisfaction, preferences, and mental workload were measured through questionnaires. The results revealed significant effects of the size of the input box, age, input method, and display size on the performance indexes and subjective ratings. Accordingly, 12 design implications for improving the Chinese handwriting system were identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 misinformation got a lot of engagement on social media, which has been a big threat to public health and international relations. Therefore, this study designed an accuracy nudge intervention to induce people to discern misinformation and adopted exogenous cues to reinforce their discernment ability. The two interventions were expected to reduce people's engagement in COVID-19 misinformation. To test the hypothesis, 80 younger adults and 80 older adults completed this experiment. As expected, the accuracy nudge motivated people to judge misinformation to a large extent. Most of the participants (91.3%) voluntarily used the accuracy nudge, which also decreased the sharing of misinformation by 62.7%. While the intervention combining the accuracy nudge and exogenous cues did not work better than any single intervention in reducing misinformation engagement. Besides, older adults tend to like or share articles that just rely on their glance at headlines, which may account for their vulnerability to misinformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to investigate older adults' psychological reactions when facing changes in daily life caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and anti-epidemic measures. Specifically, this study investigated the impacts of communication types (i.e., electronic and face-to-face communication) and frequency during the pandemic and the kinds of proactive coping actions taken by older adults on their anxiety. A total of 43,019 respondents were included in this study by merging two longitudinal databases. One is the seventh wave of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) conducted in 2017, and the other is the COVID-19 Survey of SHARE, which was conducted between June and August 2020. This study found that one third of older adults reported anxiety symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic and one fifth reported increased anxiety than before the pandemic. Anxiety symptoms seem somewhat prevalent among older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, the more kinds of proactive coping actions taken by older adults, the more likely they felt anxious. As the pandemic continues and develops, taking proactive coping actions might no longer alleviate anxiety in older adults, showing a diminishing utility. In addition, face to face communication was found to decrease the likelihood of anxiety symptoms in older adults, whereas the opposite impact of electronic communication was found. For older adults, contacting others by electronic means may increase their anxiety feeling during the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The online world is flooded with misinformation that puts older adults at risk, especially the misinformation about health and wellness. To understand older adults' vulnerability to online misinformation, this study examines how eye-catching headlines and emotional images impact their credibility judgments and spreading of health misinformation. Fifty-nine older adults aged between 58 and 83 years participated in this experiment. Firstly, participants intuitively chose an article for further reading among a bunch of headlines. Then they viewed the emotional images. Finally, they judged the credibility of health articles and decided whether to share these articles. On average, participants only successfully judged 41.38% of health articles. Attractive headlines not only attracted participants' clicks at first glance but also increased their credibility judgments on the content of health misinformation. Although participants were more willing to share an article they believed than not, 62.5% of the articles they want to share were falsehoods. Older adults in this study were notified of possible falsehoods in advance and were given enough time to discern misinformation before sharing. However, these efforts neither lead to a high judgment accuracy nor a high quality of information that they wanted to share. That may be on account of eye-catching headlines which misled participants into believing health misinformation. Besides, the most older adults in this study may follow the "better safe than sorry" principle when confronted with health misinformation, that is to say they would rather trust the misinformation to avoid health risks than doubt it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: We aimed to analyze the relationship between handgrip strength/relative handgrip strength among older Han adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) by gender to determine the optimal cut-off value of grip strength for older adults. Methods: A multi-stage sampling method was used to conduct a questionnaire survey and physical examination of 6128 older adults in Anhui Province. Chi-squares tests, t-tests, analysis of variance, and logistic regression analysis were used to analyze the association between handgrip strength/relative handgrip strength and T2DM between the sexes. The decision tree model (CRT) was used to explore the predictive value of handgrip strength /relative handgrip strength on T2DM. Results: There was an association between handgrip strength and T2DM (P = 0.006, OR = 0.985, 95% CI = 0.975, 0.996), which was found in females (P = 0.013, OR = 0.978, 95% CI = 0.961, 0.995) but not in males (P = 0.125, OR = 0.989, 95% CI = 0.976, 1.003). Relative handgrip strength was also correlated with T2DM (P = 0.014, OR = 0.730, 95% CI = 0.568, 0.939), which was found in females (P = 0.003, OR = 0.534, 95% CI = 0.352, 0.809) but not in males (P = 0.432, OR = 0.879, 95% CI = 0.638, 1.212). The incidence of T2DM in elderly females with hypertension who were uneducated and with a handgrip strength of < 17.350 kg was 24.3% (115 cases), whereas that in elderly females with hypertension and a relative handgrip strength of < 0.240 was 29.0% (127 cases). Conclusion: According to our results, handgrip strength and relative handgrip strength were associated with T2DM. People with hypertension had a higher risk of T2DM in women with a handgrip strength of ≤ 17.350kg and a relative grip strength of ≤ 0.240. Further research is needed to validate the effectiveness of this cut-off for implementing interventions and avoiding risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Mental health of older adults could be positively predicted by harmonious parent-adult children relationships, although the mechanism has not been sufficiently demonstrated. This study employed sense of loneliness as mediator to examine the influence of multiple domains of intergenerational relationships on depressive symptoms in ageing Chinese adults.Methods: Data was extracted from a representative survey in Hong Kong among Chinese adults aged over 50 with at least one adult child (n = 801). Four key domains (structural-associational, consensual-normative, affectual closeness, and intergenerational conflict) were adopted to measure the intergenerational relationship quality. Depressive symptoms were assessed using the five-item Geriatric Depression Scale. The mediating role of sense of loneliness in the association between intergenerational relationships and depressive symptoms were tested by the PROCESS macro in SPSS.Results: The influence of overall intergenerational relationship quality and its four subdomains on depressive symptoms were significantly mediated by sense of loneliness. Among the four domains, affectual closeness presented the strongest association with older people's depressive symptoms. The effect of intergenerational conflict on depressive symptoms was completely mediated by sense of loneliness, and the effects of remaining three domains were partially mediated. The domain of consensual-normative solidarity received the lowest rating by Chinese older adults.Conclusion: The psychological pathway that loneliness links intergenerational relationships and depressive symptoms was supported in this study. With respect to improving intergenerational relationships, enhancing affectual connection between older parents and adult children was essential to prevent mental problems. This study calls for more attention to the protective role of diverse social relationships in improving mental health through multiple pathways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study challenges the common rule of thumb, fewer steps the better, in the context of older adults' learning of smartphone apps under remote support. During the learning of new apps, a predominant problem is that older adults easily get lost. Therefore, this study examined various information structures and proposed two types of instructions in two experiments. In the first experiment, twenty-four older adults learned to use smartphone apps with three information structures through step-by-step instruction or metaphorical instruction. Compared with step-by-step instruction, the metaphorical instruction contributed to greater ease of learning and shorter task completion time. However, the advantage of metaphorical instruction over step-by-step instruction depended on the information structure. Older adults' performance of learning the information structure 2 × 2 were poorer than that of learning the information structure 4 × 1 or 1 × 4, which might imply that fewer steps is not necessarily better. To further test the finding, the second experiment was conducted among 30 older adults who learned to use smartphone apps with five information structures (28, 44, 41 + 82, 82 + 41, and 162). The results indicated that the advantage of fewer interaction steps depends on preview size. The highest number of interaction steps with the fewest number of preview size, 28, contributed to best learning performance of older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Usage and acceptance of smart devices Usability problems and acceptance barriers of smart devices differ across I interaction paradigms i such as touch-based interaction, voice-based interaction, text-based interaction, and full-body interaction. Therefore, this special issue aims to investigate older adults' needs of smart technology for independent living, to learn from practices of implementing smart technology, and to identify directions toward the humanized interaction for older adults. [Extracted from the article]

Screen mirroring might be a way to improve older adults' user experience of smart televisions (STVs) through smartphones. To examine this possibility, two experiments were conducted. Experiment I examined older adults' difficulties of screen mirroring (mirroring smartphone screens to STVs) through five common touch gestures ("Drag," "Slide," "Zoom," "Draw," and "Handwrite"), in comparison to younger adults. The results indicated that a major problem for older adults is the frequent attention switching between the STV and smartphone screens. Therefore, experiment II explored how to reduce the need of attention switching through the touch gestures ("Tap," "Slide + Tap," and "Slide + Release") and the button sizes (8, 14, and 20 mm) for different input postures. Thirty older adults participated in this experiment and their eye movements were tracked. Four major findings were derived. First, the "Zoom," "Draw," and "Handwrite" gestures in screen mirroring were difficult for older adults with a task completion rate lower than 68%. Second, the problem of frequent attention switching between the STV and smartphone was predominant for tapping tasks. Third, the "Slide + Tap" and "Slide + Release" touch gestures helped to reduce attention switching in tapping tasks more than the "Tap" for older adults, while the "Slide + Release" received the worst subjective feedback. Fourth, increasing the button size from 8 mm to 14 mm on smartphones can improve the task completion rate and the task efficiency in screen mirroring when older adults used the one-handed posture to tap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Getting lost could lead to frustration, anxiety, and even fatal accidents. Previous research primarily focused on disorientation in indoor or outdoor environments separately. The indoor-outdoor transition received little attention, yet it is in this complex transition that individuals often lose their way. Therefore, the effects of indoor-outdoor route alignment, visual access, and age on wayfinding performance and spatial cognition were examined. Twenty older adults (aged 18–25) and twenty young adults (aged 65–82) participated in an experiment through desktop Virtual Reality (VR). They traversed indoor-outdoor environments and were informed within a building to quickly navigate an item inside another building. They also drew the route map. Participants repeated tasks in four different environments. Their spatial cognition and wayfinding performance were analyzed. Four main findings were derived. Firstly, the accuracy of global representation of the routes in the indoor-outdoor route alignment environment was higher than that in the non-aligned environment. Secondly, in environments with higher visual access, the accuracy of global representation of the routes for older adults was higher than that with lower visual access. Thirdly, enhancing visual access attenuated the negative impact of the non-aligned route on global representation of the routes. This effect is particularly beneficial for older adults. Fourthly, the younger adults outperformed the older adults in both wayfinding performance and global representation of the routes in indoor-outdoor environments. This difference could potentially be attributed to variations in education level, mental rotation ability, and digital experience. These findings provide valuable implications for urban design and wayfinding strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current interfaces of smart TVs (STVs) lack an effective customization that is consistent with the needs of older adults. Accordingly, this study investigates the usability problems encountered by older adults when using STVs, and it identifies solutions to the most frequent problem. In the pilot study, a usability test was conducted and the difficulty of focus manipulation was found to be the most frequent one. Then in the main study, an experiment was conducted to evaluate two solutions (i.e., maintaining consistent element size and adding arrow hints), which involved remote control (RC) and touchscreen interaction (TI) input methods. Fifty-three older adults were recruited to participate in the study and thus four findings were found. First, the task completion time for manipulating focus increases with age and it rapidly increases after 75 years of age. Second, using a simplified RC can significantly improve the task effectiveness and decrease the number of keystrokes and the completion time for manipulating focus when compared with TI. While when using TI, after adding arrow hints to the STV interface the task completion time and the number of keystrokes are reduced. Third, for both input methods, when the interface comprises elements with inconsistent sizes, adding arrow hints was observed to enhance the task effectiveness and shorten the task completion time. However, the arrow hints were counterproductive when the element sizes were consistent. Fourth, the majority of elderly participants preferred to use arrow hints in the STV interface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The debate around skeuomorphic and flat designs has been long lasting and inconclusive, in part because of the lack of empirical evidence supporting the superiority of one or the other icon style from the perspectives of function and aesthetics. Therefore, this study investigated whether older and younger users perceive the aesthetics of icon styles in the same manner as designers and which style results in the most efficient visual search. Using an experimental system that we developed, 24 older and 24 younger participants rated and searched application icons belonging to the two styles. The results indicated that there was generally a notable difference between participants' and designers' perceptions of icon design styles, even after training, and that the perceived icon design styles further influenced the visual search time and accuracy of the participants as well as their evaluation of the icons' beauty. The results imply that the younger participants could use the skeuomorphic icons more efficiently than they could use the flat icons and that they had an advantage over older participants in terms of this ability; however, aesthetically they appreciated flat icons more. In contrast, older participants searched skeuomorphic icons more quickly and accurately than they did flat icons, and aesthetically they appreciated skeuomorphic icons more. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]