Impact of Technology on Successful Aging »

K. Warner Schaie, PhD, is an Evan Pugh Professor of Human Development and Psychology and director of the Gerontology Center at Pennsylvania State University. He has previously held professional appointments at the University of Nebraska, West Virginia University, and the University of Southern California. Dr. Schaie received his BA from the University of California - Berkeley and his MS and PhD degrees from the University of Washington, all in psychology. He is the author or editor of 26 books and over 200 journal articles and chapters related to the study of human aging. Dr. Schaie is the recipient of the Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award of the American Psychological Association and of the Robert W. Kleemeier Award for Distinguished Research Contributions from the Gerontological Society of America. He was awarded the honorary degree of Dr. phil. h.c. by the Friedrich-Schiller-University of Jena, Germany.

Neil Charness, PhD, received his BA (1969) in Psychology from McGill University, and his MS (1971) and PhD (1974) in Psychology from Carnegie Mellon University. He was an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University (1974-1977) and a Professor of Psychology and Gerontology at the University of Waterloo (1977-1994). He is currently a Professor of Psychology at the Florida State University, and a Research Associate at the Pepper Institute on Aging and Public Policy. His current research interests focus on the topics of aging and expert performance across the life span, and age and human factors as related to technology use. He has held grants concerned with these topics from the National Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Canadian Aging Research Network (Canada), the DAAD (Germany), the Retirement Research Foundation (USA), and the National Institute on Aging (USA). He is a Fellow of the Canadian Psychological Association, The American Psychological Association, the American Psychological Society, and the Gerontological Society of America.

US, Canadian, and German researchers in medical and health care fields, along with a few representatives from industry, explore how today's elderly have benefited from the marked changes in technology over their adult life span, but may be disadvantaged if their education and life experience have not prepared them to take full advantage of the technology. The six papers and commentary on them are edited from presentations at an October 2001 conference at Pennsylvania State University. Annotation ©2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR