Abstract

This study examined how age relates to usability, cognitive load, and affect when using voice-user interfaces (VUIs). VUIs such as Siri, Alexa, and Google Home are increasingly common and allow users to complete tasks through voice commands. While these systems can be convenient and accessible, especially for older adults, they often provide brief or unclear feedback when errors occur, making it difficult for users to understand what went wrong and how to continue the interaction. The current study compared older and younger adults (n = 40) to examine group differences in perceived usability, cognitive load, and affective change during VUI interactions. Participants in the older adult group reported higher feedback acceptance, perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use than participants in the younger adult group. No significant differences were observed in perceived cognitive load or affect after controlling for baseline positive affect. Behavioral cognitive load differed across error-feedback conditions, with the Execution-Elaborate condition demonstrating lower behavioral cognitive load than the remaining conditions. This pattern was consistent across both the repeated-measures ANOVA and the linear mixed-effects model, and no age-group differences or condition-by-age-group interactions were observed. These findings suggest that elaborated feedback during execution errors may support error recovery, while the benefits of elaborated feedback may depend on the type of error encountered.

Publication Date

8-7-2026

Document Type

Thesis

Student Type

Graduate

Degree Name

Experimental Psychology (MS)

Department, Program, or Center

Psychology, Department of

College

College of Liberal Arts

Advisor

Esa M. Rantanen

Advisor/Committee Member

Garreth Tigwell

Advisor/Committee Member

Dustin Haraden

Campus

RIT – Main Campus

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