HUMAN PERFORMANCE, 94), 349-361 Copyright © 1996, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Age-Related Changes in Psychomotor Performance Robert Kerr Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation Brock University Christine Blais Department of Child Studies Brock University Jeffrey I. Toward Center on Aging University of Texas at Houston The purpose of this investigation was to assess the influence of age relative to the response to changes in task difficulty within the performance of a discrete pursuit tracking task by adults from 20-89 years old. The results obtained suggest that although there was a significant age-related decrement in psychomotor performance, it was most prevalent in the 70-79 and 80-89 years age group. However, the data were quite stable across the younger age groups: 20-60 years. Hence, although providing support for the contention of age-related decrements in psychomotor performance with increasing age, this investigation indicates that the decrements may not be as dramatic or immediate as some studies may have previously implied, Although there is a wealth of research support for the concept of age-related slowing of reaction time (RT) with increasing age (Era, Jokela, & Heikkinen, 1986; Wilkinson & Allison, 1989), there is considerably less information regarding the control of discrete movements (Proteau, Charest, & Chaput, 1994). Welford (1984) stated that the main limitations to psychomotor performance in older adults are a Requests for reprints should be sent to Robert Kerr, Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation, Brock University, St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada L2S 3A1.350 KERR, BLAIS, TOWARD function of the changes occurring within the central mechanisms relating decisions to what has been perceived and the planning of the motor response. Cross-sectional studies examining this issue have shown age-related slowing in both RT and movement time (MT) with increasing age, as well as an increase in error rates (Stelmach, Goggin, & Amrhein, 1988; Stelmach, Goggin, & Garcia-Colera, 1987). However, older adults may compensate for the increased error rate by changing their strategy, for example, reduce errors by responding slower (Charness, 1991). One means of examining age-related differences is to vary the difficulty of the experimental task: Madden (1990) referred to this concept of task complexity as a “unifying construct” for “characterizing age differences.” In an 8-year longitudinal study, Fozard, Vercruyssen, Reynolds, Hancock, and Quilter (1994) examined simple- and disjunctive-RT in 1,265 adults between 17 and 96 years old. Their findings were not only consistent with the concept that there was a slowing of behavior with age, but also suggested that it was a direct function of task complexity. These results were similar to Era et al. (1986), who also reported significantly slower responses for older participants as a function of task complexity. In addition, the factor of task complexity has also been the focus of several studies with respect to the response of older adults to changes in movement complexity. Light and Spirduso (1990) noted the “robustness” of the Movement Complexity x Age effect in that older participants were more sensitive to small changes in movement complexity. Further, when comparing the performance of young and old partici- pants on a perceptual-motor task, McDowd and Craik (1988) reported that age differences were exaggerated as the task was made more complex. Overall, whether changes in task complexity are related to assessments of MT or RT, increases in task complexity appear to have a deleterious effect on the psychomotor performance of older adults. Although the findings of these studies are consistent with the concept of age-related slowing of behavior, there are some exceptions. Proteau et al. (1994), using a discrete aiming task, reported that older participants (60-72 years) were less affected by modifications in afferent information between acquisition and transfer trials than were younger participants (20-26 years), suggesting that the older participants were more flexible in their ability to use afferent information. Further, Siegler (1985), in reporting longitudinal data over 6 years, indicated no age-related changes in total RT as slower MTs were compensated by faster decision times. Taken together, these studies raise the possibility that older adults may, to some extent, be able to compensate for some of their apparent limitations by changing how they approach the task, at least within tasks where such an opportu- nity may exist. Such differences in strategy could exist in both the global approach to the task (e.g., more cautious) or in the allocation of (processing) resources relative to subcomponents of the task. Morgan et al. (1994) reported that when older participants were required to move at the preferred speed of younger participants, rather than their own more cautious preferred speed, they were able to do so withAGE-RELATED CHANGES 351 comparable accuracy. However, both Morgan et al. (1994) and Pratt, Chasteen, and Abrams (1994) reported age-related differences in the mechanisms underlying movement control. The pursuit tracking task (Buck, Leonardo, & Hyde, 1981) used in the present experiment varies the difficulty of the task for both RT, through changes in directional probability, and MT, through changes in the distance over which precise movements must be made. The task also permits errors to be identified, and these errors must be corrected for the task to continue. In addition, as the task is self-paced itcan accommodate to all levels of performance and does not simply eliminate those who cannot attain some minimum speed criteria: participants may establish their own strategy. The discrete pursuit tracking task has been used previously in a series of studies with healthy young and old adults as well as patients with Parkinson’s disease (Kerr, Dall, Grimes, & Teaffe, 1988; Kerr & Teaffe, 1991; Normand, Kerr, & Métivier, 1987). All participants were able to learn and perform this complex psychomotor task, with most improvement occurring for all participants across the first two trials (200 responses). Hence, the task provides a means to assess what Pratt et al. (1994) saw as the important ability “to make fast and accurate goal-di- rected movements ... (within an) ... ever-changing environment.” Park (1994) noted that researchers often failed to produce negative correlations between age and work performance “despite (demonstrated) declines in component processes” associated with aging. One explanation was that as complex knowledge structures increase with age they may compensate for these declines in component processes. If this hypothesis is correct, then a task that is self-paced and permits the correction of errors should allow older adults an opportunity to adjust to the task and, thereby, compensate for the “expected” age-related decrements in performance. Hence, from the perspective of those studies that have demonstrated differences between young and old adults, one would expect to see (a) increases in RT and MT with increasing age, (b) an increase in error rates with increasing age, and (c) an increase in the response to changes in task complexity. If, however, there is some fine tuning in the allocation of processing resources with age, this mightcompensate for decreases in the maximum speed of responding in tasks where precision is also an important factor, that is, where we focus on the skill and efficiency of movement rather than just examine the maximum speed of responding. Therefore, in a more complex task that requires a balance between the speed and precision of movement there would be a different expectation to that of a “speed” task. Specifically, although there may be differences in RT and MT at the extremes of the aging spectrum, there may be no evidence of any age-related changes between these extremes. The purpose of this investigation, therefore, was to assess the psychomotor performance of normal healthy adults on a discrete pursuit tracking task, in particular: (a) to review the influence of age on the response to changes in task352 KERR, BLAIS, TOWARD difficulty in terms of both RT and MT, and (b) given the “established” age-related decrements in performance associated with speeded tasks, to examine whether older adults are able to moderate the impact of these decrements within a self-paced task. METHOD Participants The participants were 210 adult volunteers responding to advertisements placed in Seniors’ Community Centers, government and educational institutions, as well as self-recruitment of friends and colleagues. All participants were unfamiliar with the task and signed a letter of informed consent. The participants were divided into seven age groups with 15 men and 15 women in each age group. The average ages for each of the groups were as follows: 22.9 years (SD = 2.1), 33.6 years (SD =2.6), 43.1 years (SD = 3.4), 55.6 years (SD = 2.0), 62.4 years (SD = 2.0), 73.0 years (SD = 2.3), 84.3 years (SD = 2.3). Self-reports of their medical history indicated that they had no history of heart disease or stroke, and had normal or corrected-to-normal vision. In addition, participants with any physical disability (e.g., tremor) were not included in this study. Task The task was a discrete (step-input) pursuit tracking task. The tracking task incorporated five target positions (lights) separated by a distance of 41 mm (see Figure 1). When a target was illuminated, the participant was required to align the pointer within the 2.4 mm target area for a period of 200 msec. At this point, the light was extinguished and the next target was simultaneously illuminated. One trial consisted of a random presentation of 100 targets, with the limitation that the 20 possible between-target movements each occurred five times. The task was novel in that moving the pointer to the right was accomplished by turning the wheel to the left, and vice-versa. The discrete pursuit tracking task differed from most traditional tapping or tracking (aiming) tasks, where movements can be terminated in an error, as it Tequired participants to align the pointer with the target before the next movement could be initiated. Therefore, the time taken to correct a decision error (initiating a movement in the wrong direction) or a movement error (overshooting the target) was added to the total time taken to complete that particular response. Procedure All participants were tested in a quiet room in a familiar setting (e.g., a Senior’s Club), and given an explanation and demonstration in regard to the operation of theAGE-RELATED CHANGES 353 FIGURE 1 Front view of pursuit tracking task. task. Participants were encouraged to ask questions and were allowed to familiarize themselves with the movement of the pointer to help ensure they understood what was required. Only when participants reported they were clear as to the require- ments of the task did testing begin. The participants were told to move as quickly and as accurately as possible and that they were trying to reduce their total time per trial. At the end of each trial participants were told their total time (in seconds) for that trial. After every second trial participants were reminded to blink their eyes (to354 KERR, BLAIS, TOWARD avoid staring at the display) and to relax their grip on the wheel. This imposed break (approximately 1 min) established the protocol as four blocks of two trials. The overall pace of the test trial was participant dependent in that a new target was not presented until alignment with a previous target was successfully achieved, and the subsequent trial did not commence until the participant was ready to respond. Each participant completed eight trials, for a total of 800 responses, in a testing session of approximately 40 min. Analysis The variables measured were (a) RT, the interval between the presentation of the target light and the initiation of a response executed in the correct direction; (b) nonovershoot movement time (NMT), the interval between the initiation of the response and the successful alignment with the target without first overshooting the target; (c) overshoot movement time (OMT), the interval between the initiation of the response and the successful alignment after the target had been overshot; (d) decision score (DS), the number of movements initiated in the wrong direction; and (e) overshoot score (OS), the number of movements that overshot the target. Movement overshoots are identified separately in that, although the goal of the task has not changed, participants are required to reprogram (Larish & Stelmach, 1982) their movements tocomplete that response. Stelmach et al. (1988) identified response selection as one of the key factors in the slowing of motor responses with age. ‘The difficulty of the task was varied across four levels of movement distance and four levels of directional probability (see Figure 1). When the participant started from Position 5 the probability that the next movement would be to the left was 100%. When the participant started from Position 2 the probability of moving right was 75% and the probability of moving left was 25%. From the central position there was a 50% probability of moving either left or right. Hence, the variables were analyzed using Group x Distance or Probability x Block analysis of variance (7 x 4x 4), with repeated measures on the latter two factors. Simple main effects were used to describe the interaction effects and the Scheffé test for post hoc analysis, using p < .05. The data were averaged within trials and analyzed across four blocks of two trials. RESULTS The group means and standard deviations for each of the main variables are presented in Table 1. Significant block main effects (p < .01) were found for all variables: There was an improvement in performance across blocks, with most of the improvement occurring across the first block of trials and being quite stable for the latter two blocks.+(sosuodsax 991) [ey rad srous9 Jo saquinm se passaidxa sayqeUeA 9s9uL, ‘31008 YOOYSIZAO = FO {95008 UOISINOP = SCI {9UIN JUSUIDAOU JOOYSI9AO = LIAO ‘9UMT} WOU2AOU! JOOYsJeAOUOU = LINN {SW} UONDeA = LY “aON Lo ee Lo It 90 y0e 90 ¥6I Lo 98 £0 SOE 90 88z sO Lo Sst v0 = Or co Lt Lo S91 60 lt 0 S6I Lo 791 +a V9 = WOT OLE = OLA. SZ OSTT ST = LLE'T. «EST. «LORE. ZET—GEM'T. HHT O9H'T WO Sst L691 LOT Tec't €'€I corr Lk 166 gL 106 ss 0v6 88 696 LWN on OY 6a OE 6th Bz we ET eee re we Ove 1a as Ww as Ww as Ww as Ww as Ww as Ww as We atqouD, oe 0 09 os or o¢ or (siwa4) dnowg ay (oesw ul) drop eby yoeg 10) sejqeyeA UleW EY} 10) dnoD eBy Yyoez 10) suO}eIAeQ psepue}S pue suBEW baevl 355Reaction Time (msec) 356 KERR. BLAIS, TOWARD In terms of the MT variables there were significant group main effects. The significant OMT Group effect, F(6, 98) = 28.18, p < .01, resulted from the slower responses of the two oldest age groups (80-89 years and 70-79 years). The oldest group was significantly slower than all other groups, whereas the 70-79 years group was significantly slower than the four younger groups. It should be noted that there were no significant differences between any of the other age groups. For NMT, however, the Group effect, F(6, 98) = 27.83, p < .01, resided only in the 80-89 years age group that was significantly slower than all other groups. Other significant effects were present in the movement variables. A significant distance effect, longer MTs for longer distances, did occur for both OMT, F(3, 294) = 143.69, p<.01, and NMT, F(3, 294) = 1267.7, p< .01, indicating that movements across the four different distances were significantly different from one another. Additional interactions were found for Group x Distance in OMT, F(18, 294) = 3.95, p<.01, and in NMT, F(18, 294) = 12.73, p<.01. In both cases (OMT, NMT), increasing the distance to be moved had a larger impact on the two oldest age groups relative to all other age groups. In the data associated with RT, there were significant group, F(6, 98) = 21.27, p<.01, and probability effects, F(3, 294) = 120.35, p< .01, and a significant Group x Probability interaction, F(18, 294) = 6.61, p < .01. Again, the oldest age group (80-89 years) was significantly different from all other age groups, and the 70-79 700 600 iat oo; 300 25 50 75 100 Directional Probability (9) FIGURE 2 Response (reaction time) to changes in directional probability in the three oldest age groups: 60-69 years, 70-79 years, and 80-89 years.AGE-RELATED CHANGES 357 years group was significantly different from the three youngest age groups. The probability effect reflected the increase in RT seen with each decrease in directional probability, with RT being fastest when direction was 100% probable. Although reflecting the differences already noted, the significant interaction resulted from the pattern of responses evidenced by the oldest group. In the case of the 80-89 years age group their fastest RT was at the 25% probability level and their slowest was at the 75% probability level, whereas all other groups evidenced their fastest RT at the 100% probability level (see Figure 2). In regard to the two sources of error, a significant group main effect was found for overshoot score, F(6, 98) = 6.96, p < 01, in that the 30-39 years group made more overshoots than the 50-59 years group. Also, a Group x Error interaction, F(18, 294) = 5.04, p < .01, was noted in decision score, in that the 80-89 years age group made significantly more decision errors than all other groups when direction was 100% probable, but were not significantly different at other levels of prob- ability. DISCUSSION In their studies comparing 20- to 75-year-old adults, Stelmach et al. (1988) and Stelmach et al. (1987) noted that the elderly evidenced slower RTs and slower MTs, and made more errors. At the extremes (20 vs. 80 years), this study would certainly agree with this statement. However, the concept of an age-related decline in performance between these ages, which was implied in these studies or was explicitly demonstrated in the cross-sectional study of simple RT (10 trials) by Wilkinson and Allison (1989), cannot be supported by this study. In fact, the data were very stable across the age groups, with little deterioration in performance being present until comparisons were made with the 70 years age group, with a further decrement in performance being evidenced by the 80 years age group. In addition, although there were significant interactions for Group x Probability/Distance, these primarily reflected differences between the extreme age groups (20 vs. 80 years). In terms of some of the questions related to the complexity issue, Goggin, Stelmach, and Amrhein (1989) reported that older participants were slower than younger participants when required to modify a planned response (in a discrete aiming task). This contention would appear to be supported by this study, but only as it related to the performance of the two oldest age groups (70-79 years and 80-89 years). The two older groups appeared to be disadvantaged when moving over the longer distances (NMT), or when required to modify a planned response after overshooting the target (OMT). This latter finding would appear to complement the work of Clark, Lanphear, and Riddick (1987), who found that the difference with older participants was not that they moved slower, but that they spent more time at points where movement direction must be altered.358 KERR, BLAIS, TOWARD One of the identified age-related difficulties in psychomotor performance is the perceived inability to make full use of advanced information, particularly when faced with complex situations (Era et al., 1986; McDowd & Craik, 1988). In general, participants in this study did respond slower (RT) as the choice of direction became less probable. The group that responded differently to changes in direc- tional probability was the 80-89 years age group (see Figure 2), whose responses appeared unrelated to the probability level. This would support the notion that elderly participants have difficulty in abstracting or taking advantage of the information available. However, the performance of the 80-89 years group is open to an alternative explanation. The 80-89 years group responded fastest (RT) when direction was least probable (25%) and slowest when direction was 75% probable; these alternative situations arise when the participant is resting on Target 2 or 4. When the next light in the sequence is illuminated, it provides the participant with information in regard to movement direction and movement distance simultaneously: Buck et al. (1981) demonstrated that movement distance does not affect RT on the discrete pursuit tracking task. However, if the older participants treated these factors (movement distance and location) as separate pieces of information by focusing first on those lights adjacent to where the pointer is resting, then it could produce the pattern of responding seen in the 80-89 years group: The 25% probable condition involves one target location and the 75% condition involves three target locations. Thus, when resting on Target 2, although Target I represents the least probable direction, it is both one of the adjacent lights and the end light of a display, a light that, according to Nettelbeck and Brewer (1976), tends to be easier to discriminate. Hence, a strategy of focusing on adjacent target lights before checking the more distant lights would then produce the fastest RT at the 25% level of directional probability and, by default, the 75% condition produces the slowest RT. In regard to the question of errors, consistently raised by Stelmach et al. (1987) and Stelmach et al. (1988) and also by Haaland, Vranes, Goodwin, and Garry (1987), this study offers little support for any age-related effect. Few significant differences were found between age groups, for either decision score or overshoot score, and there was no clear age-related pattern to the data. Although offering some support for Haaland et al. (1987), in that the oldest age group (80-89 years) made the most decision errors, no such effect was evident for movement (overshoot) errors. Generally, the results do not lend support to the explanations of a slower response with age due to older people’s concern with increased error rates, or to a speed-error tradeoff. However, whereas in the present task participants were free to vary their risk-taking (error-producing) strategy, many other tasks place stringent restrictions on allowable error rates. Hence, the structure of the task may be the major factor underlying age-related differences in error rates. In this study all age groups were able to learn and improve their performance, but the aging process was not reflected by incremental decreases in psychomotorAGE-RELATED CHANGES 359 performance across age groups. Swanson and Lee (1992), who previously manipu- lated the factor of knowledge of results, also reported no interaction with age in the learning of a motor skill. One cannot argue that an individual’s abilities do not change with age, but this study would appear to imply the operation of an adaptable system, able to adjust and allocate processing resources to maintain an efficient and effective performance. Such a proposition is consistent with other previous studies. Bennett and Castiello (1994) reported that elderly participants developed strategies to compensate for visual or proprioceptive deterioration to complete a reach-to- grasp task, and Proteau et al. (1994), using a discrete aiming task, stated that older participants were more flexible in the use of afferent information for motor control than their younger counterparts. As Charness (1991) implied, strategies may be adjusted to suit changing abilities. Simple tasks may be very effective at demonstrating the maximum potential of any system (fastest responses), whereas the performance of most complex tasks requires a balancing act in terms of resource allocation. Salthouse (1993) underlined that age-related slowing, as demonstrated in a RT study, was associated with changes in the entire RT distribution and not just one component. Complex tasks, as Rabbitt (1981) suggested, require participants to find that optimum time-window for each particular task. Whereas young adults may rely on their ability to respond quickly to errors as they occur, as maximum response speeds are reduced there is a need to find the optimum response speed that permits errors to be corrected with the minimal loss of time, that is, the strategy is not simply to slow down to avoid errors but to eliminate extreme responses and consistently respond as close to the optimum as possible. In this context, performing within the “maximum” abilities, one is less likely to find evidence of age-related declines until the outer limits of performance are severely reduced such that they fall below the minimum required to perform the task efficiently. Although not directly linked to this study, a real-world example may help place these findings in context. Certainly, from a review of a complex sport such as car racing, it is evident that although there are some talented “young” drivers, most of the elite drivers could be described as “middle-aged.” This is a sport where extreme errors cannot be tolerated and where it takes time and experience to find the balance point that maximizes speed and mini ’s error. In particular, with experience the driver learns to recognize those situations where maximum speed represents too great arisk and, therefore, allocates processing resources to identify those situations in advance so that adjustments can be made in order to find the optimum speed that also avoids the costly error. Hence, rather than suggest that age-related differences in psychomotor perform- ance reflect the adoption of a more cautious global strategy, perhaps the differences are more attributable to the flexibility permitted by the task in regard to resource allocation (i.c., a controlled rather than a maximum response), which requires more monitoring. Overall, the data from the present experiment are consistent with the360 KERR, BLAIS, TOWARD suggestion of Park (1994) that, even though age-related decrements in specific components have been identified by other researchers using speeded (restricted) tasks, in a flexible complex task there is the opportunity to compensate for age-related differences in psychomotor performance. REFERENCES Bennett, K. M. B., & Castiello, U. (1994). Reach to grasp: Changes with age. Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 49, 1~7. Buck, L., Leonardo, R., & Hyde, F. (1981). 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