PERSON-ENVIRONMENT RELATIONSHIPS IN ADULTHOOD - IMPLICATIONS FOR HUMAN-FACTORS ENGINEERING

Environments for aging and the aged are best designed if human factors engineers incorporate a developmental view of adulthood in their planning. Accordingly, environments for living should be designed to accommodate the transitions between stages of adult life as well as the periods of stability. The optimal human factors interventions involve both psychological and physical aspects of the environment and include changing people through psychological intervention. Examples of human factors engineering for aging in perception, learning, and memory, as well as work, leisure, and health, illustrate areas that require successively more complicated plans for intervention.