Walking a mile in another's shoes: The impact of wearing an Age Suit
Walking a mile in another's shoes: The impact of wearing an Age Suit
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DOI：
10.1080/02701960.2015.1079706
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发表时间：
2017-01-01
影响因子：
1.6
通讯作者：
Coughlin, Joseph F.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Lavalliere, Martin;D'Ambrosio, Lisa;Coughlin, Joseph F.
本文中描述的“年龄套装”是为了让未来的设计师、商业领袖和工程师能够像许多老年人一样体验环游世界的体验。像这套Age Suit这样的工具提供了一个机会，可以换位思考，培养同理心，从而更好地设计空间、商品和服务，以满足快速增长的老年人口的需求。这项工作首先通过一系列临床测试，检查了年轻人穿着麻省理工学院老年实验室开发的西装是否会以与年龄增长一致的方向降低体能。然后，用这套西装完成了一项体验式学习任务，以了解它对完成日常生活中的工具性活动的影响。结果显示，穿着这套西装的年轻人在任务表现方面的变化与预期的与年龄相关的变化一致。参与者从体验式学习任务中得到的自我报告表明，他们能够同情老年人在完成杂货购物任务时面临的一些问题。未来关于西装的研究应该涉及人群中更广泛的个人，并检查参与者的健康水平对穿西装的体验有什么影响。
The "Age Suit" described in this article was developed to enable future designers, business leaders, and engineers to experience navigating the world as many older adults must. Tools such as this Age Suit offer the opportunity to "walk a mile" in another's shoes to develop empathy that can result in better design of spaces, goods, and services to meet the needs of a rapidly growing older population. This work first examined, through a series of clinical tests, whether younger adults' physical capacities were reduced in a direction consistent with aging by wearing a suit developed by the MIT AgeLab. An experiential learning task was then completed with the suit to understand its impact on completion of an instrumental activity of daily living. Results showed that younger adults wearing the suit experienced changes in task performance consistent with expected changes associated with aging. Participants' self-reports from the experiential learning task indicated that they were able to empathize with older adults regarding some issues they face while completing a grocery shopping task. Future research with the suit should involve a wider range of individuals from the population and examine what effect participants' levels of fitness have on the experience of wearing the suit.