Coincidence-anticipation accuracy across the life span

Abstract

Improvement in response speed through young adulthood and decline in older adulthood has been consistently demonstrated. There is indication of a similar trend in coincidence-anticipation accuracy, wherein the performer predicts the arrival of a moving stimulus at a target point, although performance appears to plateau earlier and performance by older adults has not been studied. Four age groups, 7–9, 11–13, 18–32, and 60–75 years, were observed on a coincidence-anticipation task requiring a thumb-press response and on a maximal response-time task. Speeds of the sequential-light stimulus of the former were 2 through 5 MPH. While findings confirmed age trend in response speed, only the youngest children performed significantly poorer than the others in coincidence-anticipation accuracy. More variable or less accurate performance at extreme stimulus speeds characterized this youngest group. A more sedentary group of adults, 64 to 86 years, was tested in a follow-up experiment. The analysis indicated that older adults showed little directional bias but performed less accurately and more variably than young adults.