Simple visual reaction time: Sex and age differences

Abstract

Although motor slowing is considered to reflect age‐related changes in the central nervous system, simple visual reaction time (SVRT) is considered a weak indicator of aging. A group of 176 healthy men and women, 40 to 90 years old, performed 44 trials on an SVRT task in which the stimulus occurred at random intervals of 1 to 10 sec. Sex and age accounted for a significant proportion of the variance of minimum (best motor performance) and truncated mean reaction times of the 44 responses. Men were consistently faster than women over all decades. Depression, personality traits, mental status, practice, or fatigue did not account for the difference in performance. SVRT is sensitive to sex differences and to aging of the nervous system.