Quantifying the performance limitations of older and younger adults in a target acquisition task.

Liao, Min-Ju; Jagacinski, Richard J.; Greenberg, Neil

doi:10.1037/0096-1523.23.6.1644

Cited by 24 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…This assumption is confirmed in a study by Liao et al [30]. They reported that older adults (60-69 years) required a longer duration to achieve the same submovement accuracy as younger adults (18-26 years) in a stationary target-acquisition task (manipulation of a onedimensional isotonic control stick; eight blocks of 8-12 trials each).…”

Section: Motor Learning Of Fine Motor Skillssupporting

confidence: 71%

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Motor-skill learning in older adults—a review of studies on age-related differences

Voelcker‐Rehage

2008

Eur Rev Aging Phys Act

241

164

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This paper reviews research on motor-skill learning across the life span with particular emphasis on older age. For this purpose, studies that focus on age-related differences in fine and gross motor skills and studies that analyze the further refinement of known skills as well as learning of unknown motor skills are summarized. The reviewed studies suggest that although motor performance tends to decline in old age, learning capabilities remain intact, and older adults are able to achieve considerable performance gains. The extent to which the learning capability varies with age, however, has to be considered very carefully. While most studies revealed that performance gains in fine motor tasks are diminished in older adults, results for gross-motor-skill learning are more contradictory. Additionally, there is considerable agreement on the finding that age-related learning differences are statistically more robust in complex tasks, whereas in lowcomplexity tasks, the learning of younger and older adults is very similar. This applies to fine and gross motor skills. Relative age differences seem to become enlarged when effortful resources are required for motor performance. Thus, the decline in motor learning that accompanies aging is task specific and not absolute.Keywords Motor skills . Learning . Older adults . Life cycle . Human developmental Motor skills play a crucial role in all phases of the life span. That is, people of all ages perform fundamental motor skills, such as walking and grasping, or specific skills, such as hammering a nail, pitching a baseball, or driving a car. The measurement of motor skills is one of the fundamental aspects of measuring human performance. It is well known that aging is accompanied by impairments in sensorimotor [27] as well as cognitive and perceptual functioning [e.g., 41, 44, 50]. When people age, they perform complex tasks more slowly and, in some cases, less accurately than they once did. Additionally, they also begin to carry out such tasks in qualitatively different ways [11,40]. If and how these age-related changes may affect the acquisition of motor skills has not been well investigated. Older adults need to practice and learn new and relearn known motor skills, respectively, as part of new task training, recreational pursuits, or rehabilitation.During the past centuries, numerous motor-skill-learning studies have been conducted. Most of these studies focus on the processes that affect the learning of a movement task in younger adults. The main focus of motor-skill-learning research was on explaining and describing different variables (e.g., knowledge of results, contextual interference, organization of practice, attentional focus, transfer of training) that affect the planning and control of voluntary movements and the learning of motor skills (for an overview see [1]). Studies that investigate motor-skill learning in older age and across the life span are rare [40].The aim of this paper is to review studies on age-related differences in motor learning a...

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Section: Motor Learning Of Fine Motor Skillssupporting

confidence: 71%

“…A common result of most studies is, as shown for studies focusing on motor functioning (not learning), that there is a general tendency that the performance level is lower for older adults as compared with younger adults [2,7,26,30,39,48,49,55,57,58,64,68,69]. In addition, regardless of learning gains, older adults function on a lower level.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Motor-skill learning in older adults—a review of studies on age-related differences

Voelcker‐Rehage

2008

Eur Rev Aging Phys Act

241

164

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“…Experimental evidence points towards the necessity of separating different movement stages, such as planning and execution, and provide evidence that these are differentially sensitive to age. Specifically, the movementplanning stage is prolonged, and the start of movements is delayed relative to the go signal [36]. But the actual movement seems affected by age as well, as motion trajectories by elderly people in aiming tasks seem to be less linear and more irregular than in younger subjects [36], and compensatory movements in pursuittracking experiments, at least at high speeds of the target, are slower and more variable [37].…”

Section: General Influence Of Agingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of Exercise in Community-Dwelling Older Adults

2016

Social Work and Geriatric Services

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Background. The decline of motor performance of the human hand-arm system with age is well-documented. While dominant hand performance is superior to that of the non-dominant hand in young individuals, little is known of possible age-related changes in hand dominance. We investigated age-related alterations of hand dominance in 20 to 90 year old subjects. All subjects were unambiguously right-handed according to the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory. In Experiment 1, motor performance for aiming, postural tremor, precision of arm-hand movement, speed of arm-hand movement, and wrist-finger speed tasks were tested. In Experiment 2, accelerometer-sensors were used to obtain objective records of hand use in everyday activities. Principal Findings. Our data confirm previous findings of a general task-dependent decline in motor performance with age. Analysis of the relationship between right/left-hand performances using a laterality index showed a loss of right hand dominance with advancing age. The clear right-hand advantage present at younger ages changed to a more balanced performance in advanced age. This shift was due to a more pronounced age-related decline of right hand performance. Accelerometer-sensor measurements supported these findings by demonstrating that the frequency of hand use also shifted from a clear right hand preference in young adults to a more balanced usage of both hands in old age. Despite these agerelated changes in the relative level of performance in defined motor tasks and in the frequency of hand use, elderly subjects continued to rate themselves as unambiguous right-handers. Conclusion. The discrepancy between hand-specific practical performance in controlled motor tests as well as under everyday conditions and the results of questionnaires concerning hand use and hand dominance suggests that most elderly subjects are unaware of the changes in hand dominance that occur over their lifespan, i.e., a shift to ambidexterity.

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“…Use of this procedure in aging research has revealed that the latencies of the older groups can be predicted accurately from those of young adults by simple mathematical equations [2,7] . Attempts to apply these methods in complex motor tasks have been scarce (see Liao et al [8] for a noticeable exception) and in the lack of metaanalyses, inconsistent estimations exist in the literature. On the one hand, on the basis of reaction-time studies, it has been suggested that sensorimotor functioning could be only slightly affected by aging relative to high-level cognitive processes [2,4,5] .…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Combining Movement Kinematics, Efficiency Functions, and Brinley Plots to Study Age-Related Slowing of Sensorimotor Processes: Insights from Fitts’ Task

et al. 2011

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Background: Measurement of changes in human information-processing capacities underlying slowing of sensorimotor processes is an important challenge for aging research. Methods exist to estimate the magnitude of slowing and variability coefficients, but attempts to apply them in motor tasks have been scarce. In the present experiment we combined movement kinematic analysis, efficiency functions and Brinley plot to assess age-related slowing and variability of sensorimotor processes in a discrete Fitts’ aiming task. Objectives: (1) Quantifying slowing and variability for the different sensorimotor processes involved in aiming movements, and (2) determining whether changes occurred continuously over time by comparing different age groups. Methods: 29 participants (24–90 years) divided into four age groups were tested. Target size manipulation resulted in three levels of difficulty. Total movement time, durations of the first and secondary movement phases and related variability were analyzed. Fitts and Brinley regression functions were calculated on the basis of the different movement variables. Results: Only older participants were slower than the three younger age groups. For this group, age-difficulty effect was observed for total movement times, but analyses showed that only the secondary movement phase slowed multiplicatively. Additive and proportional increases in variability were also observed in older participants for the first and secondary movement phases, respectively. For the secondary movement phase, estimated slowing coefficients were comparable to those reported in cognitive literature. In addition, Brinley analyses showed that variability increased more than movement time in the secondary movement phase. Discussion: Combination of the different methods of analysis allowed a precise assessment of the locus of slowing and variability of sensorimotor processes in the different movement phases. Results showed that significant changes in both slowing and variability of the different processes occurred late in life. Our findings also suggest that slowing could result from age-induced increase in noise produced by the neural system. Finally, the present results raise the question of whether age-related slowing and increase in variability observed in both cognitive and sensorimotor domains share common causes in the central nervous system.

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Quantifying the performance limitations of older and younger adults in a target acquisition task.

Cited by 24 publications

References 37 publications

Motor-skill learning in older adults—a review of studies on age-related differences

Motor-skill learning in older adults—a review of studies on age-related differences

Impact of Exercise in Community-Dwelling Older Adults

Combining Movement Kinematics, Efficiency Functions, and Brinley Plots to Study Age-Related Slowing of Sensorimotor Processes: Insights from Fitts’ Task

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