scholarly journals Pedal Misapplication: Interruption Effects and Age-Related Differences

2020 ◽  
pp. 001872082093612
Author(s):  
Kunihiro Hasegawa ◽  
Motohiro Kimura ◽  
Yuji Takeda
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Traffic Accidents ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Older Drivers ◽  
Choice Response ◽  
Accelerator Pedal ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Response Task ◽  
Related Increase

Objective This study aimed to investigate whether pedal misapplication occurs more frequently when a pedal task is interrupted for a longer period of time. Background Misapplication of a vehicle’s brake and accelerator pedals can cause severe traffic accidents, especially for older drivers. The present study provides empirical support for the hypothesis that pedal misapplication occurs more frequently when drivers are interrupted for longer periods of time and is demonstrated more prominently in older drivers. Methods Forty younger participants and 40 older participants were asked to perform a pedal choice response task (stepping on either a brake or accelerator pedal) that had been preceded by an interruption task (i.e., touch number task). Results Pedal misapplications occurred more frequently when the pedal choice response task was preceded by the touch number task for a longer interval (about 120 s) than for a shorter interval (about 30 s). Furthermore, the time-related increase in pedal misapplications was greater for older participants. Conclusion Pedal misapplication increases when the pedal task is interrupted for a longer time period, especially for older adults. Application The findings contribute to our understanding of when and where pedal misapplications tend to occur.

The Effect of Aging and Tennis Playing on Coincidence-Timing Accuracy

2006 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Régis Lobjois ◽  
Nicolas Benguigui ◽  
Jean Bertsch
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Age Effects ◽  
Compensation Strategy ◽  
Timing Accuracy ◽  
Tennis Players ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Moving Stimulus ◽  
Coincidence Timing ◽  
Compensation Hypothesis ◽  
Related Increase

This study examined the effect of tennis playing on the coincidence timing (CT) of older adults. Young, younger-old and older-old (20–30, 60–69, and 70–79 years old, respectively) tennis players and nonplayers were asked to synchronize a simple response (pressing a button) with the arrival of a moving stimulus at a target. Results showed that the older tennis players responded with a slight bias similar to that of the young players. Two experiments were conducted to determine whether the elimination of age effects through tennis playing was a result of maintaining basic perceptuomotor and perceptual processes or of some possible compensation strategy. The results revealed that the age-related increase in the visuomotor delay was significantly correlated with CT performance in older nonplayers but not in older tennis players. These results suggest that playing tennis is beneficial to older adults, insofar as they remained as accurate as younger ones despite less efficient perceptuomotor processes. This supports the compensation hypothesis.

scholarly journals Moving toward a neuroplasticity view of bilingualism, executive control, and aging

2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (5) ◽  
pp. 857-894 ◽  
Author(s):  
SHARI BAUM ◽  
DEBRA TITONE
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Cognitive Aging ◽  
Successful Aging ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Individual Variability ◽  
Cognitive Capacity ◽  
Neurocognitive Functions ◽  
Age Related

ABSTRACTNormal aging is an inevitable race between increasing knowledge and decreasing cognitive capacity. Crucial to understanding and promoting successful aging is determining which of these factors dominates for particular neurocognitive functions. Here, we focus on the human capacity for language, for which healthy older adults are simultaneously advantaged and disadvantaged. In recent years, a more hopeful view of cognitive aging has emerged from work suggesting that age-related declines in executive control functions are buffered by life-long bilingualism. In this paper, we selectively review what is currently known and unknown about bilingualism, executive control, and aging. Our ultimate goal is to advance the views that these issues should be reframed as a specific instance of neuroplasticity more generally and, in particular, that researchers should embrace the individual variability among bilinguals by adopting experimental and statistical approaches that respect the complexity of the questions addressed. In what follows, we set out the theoretical assumptions and empirical support of the bilingual advantages perspective, review what we know about language, cognitive control, and aging generally, and then highlight several of the relatively few studies that have investigated bilingual language processing in older adults, either on their own or in comparison with monolingual older adults. We conclude with several recommendations for how the field ought to proceed to achieve a more multifactorial view of bilingualism that emphasizes the notion of neuroplasticity over that of simple bilingual versus monolingual group comparisons.

scholarly journals The Predictors of Driving Cessation among Older Drivers in Korea

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (19) ◽  
pp. 7206
Author(s):  
SeolHwa Moon ◽  
Kyongok Park
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Public Transportation ◽  
Public Safety ◽  
Traffic Accidents ◽  
Strong Predictor ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Older Drivers ◽  
Driving Cessation ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Metro System

Background: As the elderly population and the number of older drivers grow, public safety concerns about traffic accidents involving older drivers are increasing. Approaches to reduce traffic accidents involving older drivers without limiting their mobility are needed. This study aimed to investigate the driving cessation (DC) rate among older Korean adults and predictors of DC based on the comprehensive mobility framework. Method: In this cross-sectional study, data from 2970 to 10,062 older adults over 65 years old from the 2017 National Survey of Elderly People were analyzed in April 2020. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were conducted to identify the predictors of DC. Results: Residential area, an environmental factor, was a strong predictor of DC (Odds Ratio (OR) 2.21, 95% Confidential Interval (CI) 1.86–2.62). Older drivers living in an area with a metro system were 2.21 more likely to stop driving than those living in an area without a metro system. Other demographic, financial, psychosocial, physical, and cognitive variables also predicted DC. Conclusion: Environmental factors were strong predictors of older adults’ DC. Therefore, political and environmental support, such as the provision of accessible public transportation, is essential to increase the DC rate among older adults to increase public safety without decreasing their mobility.

Age-Related Differences in Time-Based Event Expectancies

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina Kunchulia ◽  
Khatuna Parkosadze ◽  
Roland Thomaschke
Keyword(s):  
Healthy Aging ◽  
Short Interval ◽  
Computer Game ◽  
The Other ◽  
Binary Choice ◽  
Choice Response ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Frequent Interval ◽  
Response Task

The ability to form time-based event expectancies is one of the most important determinants of anticipative behavior. The aim of the present study was to determine whether healthy aging influences the formation of time-based event expectancies. Ten older adults with ages ranging between 60 and 73 years and ten younger adults with ages ranging between 20 and 32 years participated. We employed a binary choice response task mimicking a computer game, in which two target stimuli and two pre-target intervals appeared overall equally often. One of the targets was paired with the short interval and the other target with the long interval in 80% of the trials. Our results showed that younger adults responded more rapidly to frequent interval–target combinations than to infrequent combinations, suggesting that the young participants formed time-based event expectancies. In contrast, the ability to form time-based event expectancies was reduced for older participants. The formation of time-based event expectancies seems to change during healthy aging. We propose that this age-related difference is due to age-related expectation deficits or a reduction of attentional capacities, rather than to deficits in timing abilities.

scholarly journals Eye movements reveal a similar positivity effect in Chinese and UK older adults

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (11) ◽  
pp. 1921-1929
Author(s):  
Jingxin Wang ◽  
Fang Xie ◽  
Liyuan He ◽  
Katie L Meadmore ◽  
Kevin B Paterson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Factor Analysis ◽  
Eye Movements ◽  
Bayes Factor ◽  
Attention And Memory ◽  
Emotional Information ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Positivity Effect ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Related Increase

The “positivity effect” (PE) reflects an age-related increase in the preference for positive over negative information in attention and memory. The present experiment investigated whether Chinese and UK participants produce a similar PE. In one experiment, we presented pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral pictures simultaneously and participants decided which picture they liked or disliked on a third of trials, respectively. We recorded participants’ eye movements during this task and compared time looking at, and memory for, pictures. The results suggest that older but not younger adults from both China and UK participant groups showed a preference to focus on and remember pleasant pictures, providing evidence of a PE in both cultures. Bayes Factor analysis supported these observations. These findings are consistent with the view that older people preferentially focus on positive emotional information, and that this effect is observed cross-culturally.

scholarly journals Age differences in sustained attention tasks: A meta-analysis

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonino Vallesi ◽  
Virginia Tronelli ◽  
Francesco Lomi ◽  
Rachele Pezzetta
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Sustained Attention ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Stimulus Presentation ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
False Alarms ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Posterror Slowing ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Response Task

AbstractMany aspects of attention decline with aging. There is a current debate on how aging also affects sustained attention. In this study, we contribute to this debate by meta-analytically comparing performance on the go/no-go Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART) in younger and older adults. We included only studies in which the SART had a low proportion of no-go trials (5%–30%), there was a random or quasirandom stimulus presentation, and data on both healthy younger and older adults were available. A total of 12 studies were suitable with 832 younger adults and 690 older adults. Results showed that older adults were slower than younger adults on go trials (g = 1, 95% CI [.72, 1.27]) and more accurate than younger adults on no-go trials (g = .59, 95% CI [.32, .85]). Moreover, older adults were slower after a no-go error than younger adults (g = .79, 95% CI [.60, .99]). These results are compatible with an age-related processing speed deficit, mostly suggested by longer go RTs, but also with an increased preference for a prudent strategy, as demonstrated by fewer no-go errors and greater posterror slowing in older adults. An inhibitory deficit account could not explain these findings, as older adults actually outperformed younger adults by producing fewer false alarms to no-go stimuli. These findings point to a more prudent strategy when using attentional resources in aging that allows reducing the false-alarm rate in tasks producing a tendency for automatic responding.

scholarly journals Age-Related Decline of Psychomotor Speed: Effects of Age, Brain Health, Sex, and Education

1993 ◽  
Vol 76 (1) ◽  
pp. 195-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter J. Houx ◽  
Jellemer Jolles
Keyword(s):  
Reaction Time ◽  
Life Events ◽  
Cross Sectional Study ◽  
Test Methods ◽  
Choice Response ◽  
Healthy Population ◽  
Psychomotor Speed ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Response Task

A cross-sectional study into age-related decline of psychomotor speed is reported. A newly introduced choice response task was used, involving three conditions: simple reaction time (SRT), choice reaction time (CRT), and CRT with stimulus-response incompatibility. Subjects were 247 volunteers, aged 20 to 80 yr. in seven age levels. Although all subjects thought themselves to be normal and healthy, a post hoc division could be made based on biological life events (BLE, mild biological or environmental factors that can hamper optimal brain functioning, such as repeated general anesthesia). Performance was poorer by subjects who had experienced one or more such event: slowing was comparable to the effect of age, especially in the more difficult task conditions. There were significant effects of sex and education, men being consistently faster than women, and more highly educated subjects performing better than subjects with only low or medium education. These findings replicate observations from other test methods. They are also in line with several other studies giving interactions between the effects of aging and physical fitness. This study questions the validity of much research on aging, as the data suggest that a more rigorous health screening for biological life events in subjects recruited from the normal, healthy population can reduce performance effects normally ascribed to aging.

scholarly journals Age-related differences in functional asymmetry during memory retrieval revisited: no evidence for contralateral over-activation or compensation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James M. Roe ◽  
Didac Vidal-Piñeiro ◽  
Markus H. Sneve ◽  
Kristiina Kompus ◽  
Douglas N. Greve ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Memory Retrieval ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Processing Efficiency ◽  
Frontal Asymmetry ◽  
Functional Deficits ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Related Increase

AbstractBrain asymmetry is inherent to cognitive processing and seems to reflect processing efficiency. Lower frontal asymmetry is often observed in older adults during memory retrieval, yet it is unclear whether lower asymmetry implies an age-related increase in contralateral recruitment, whether less asymmetry reflects compensation, is limited to frontal regions, or predicts neurocognitive stability or decline. We assessed age-differences in asymmetry across the entire cerebral cortex, using fMRI data from 89 young and 76 older adults during successful retrieval, and surface-based methods that allowed direct homotopic comparison of activity between hemispheres. An extensive left-asymmetric network facilitated retrieval in both young and older adults, whereas diverse frontal and parietal regions exhibited lower asymmetry in older adults. However, lower asymmetry was not associated with age-related increases in contralateral recruitment, but primarily reflected either less deactivation in contralateral regions reliably signalling retrieval failure in the young, or lower recruitment of the dominant hemisphere—suggesting that functional deficits may drive lower asymmetry in older brains, not compensatory activity. Lower asymmetry neither predicted current memory performance, nor the extent of memory change across the preceding ∼8 years in older adults. Together, these findings are inconsistent with a compensation account for lower asymmetry during retrieval and aging.

scholarly journals Age-related alterations in inhibitory control investigated using the minimally delayed oculomotor response task

PeerJ ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. e8401
Author(s):  
Paul C. Knox ◽  
Nikitha Pasunuru
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Inhibitory Control ◽  
Error Rate ◽  
Oculomotor System ◽  
Error Rates ◽  
Target Display ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Oculomotor Response ◽  
General Slowing ◽  
Response Task

Healthy, older adults are widely reported to experience cognitive decline, including impairments in inhibitory control. However, this general proposition has recently come under scrutiny because ageing effects are highly variable between individuals, are task dependent, and are sometimes not distinguished from general age-related slowing. We recently developed the minimally delayed oculomotor response (MDOR) task in which participants are presented with a simple visual target step, and instructed to saccade not to the target when it appears (a prosaccade response), but when it disappears (i.e. on target offset). Varying the target display duration (TDD) prevents offset timing being predictable from the time of target onset, and saccades prior to the offset are counted as errors. A comparison of MDOR task performance in a group of 22 older adults (mean age 62 years, range 50–72 years) with that in a group of 39 younger adults (22 years, range 19–27 years) demonstrated that MDOR latency was significantly increased in the older group by 34–68 ms depending on TDD. However, when MDOR latencies were corrected by subtracting the latency observed in a standard prosaccade task, the latency difference between groups was abolished. There was a larger latency modulation with TDD in the older group which was observed even when their generally longer latencies were taken into account. Error rates were significantly increased in the older group. An analysis of the timing distribution of errors demonstrated that most errors were failures to inhibit responses to target onsets. When error distributions were used to isolate clear inhibition failures from other types of error, the older group still exhibited significantly higher error rates as well as a higher residual error rate. Although MDOR latency in older participants may largely reflect a general slowing in the oculomotor system with age, both the latency modulation and error rate results are consistent with an age-related inhibitory control deficit. How this relates to performance on other inhibitory control tasks remains to be investigated.

Age-Related Differences in Processing Dynamic Information to Identify Vowel Quality

1992 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 892-902 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Allen Fox ◽  
Lida G. Wall ◽  
Jeanne Gokcen
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Vowel Quality ◽  
Perceptual Cues ◽  
Dynamic Information ◽  
Process Dynamic ◽  
Center Condition ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Control Version ◽  
Older Subjects ◽  
Whole Word

This study examined age-related differences in the use of dynamic acoustic information (in the form of formant transitions) to identify vowel quality in CVCs. Two versions of 61 naturally produced, commonly occurring, monosyllabic English words were created: a control version (the unmodified whole word) and a silent-center version (in which approximately 62% of the medial vowel was replaced by silence). A group of normal-hearing young adults (19–25 years old) and older adults (61–75 years old) identified these tokens. The older subjects were found to be significantly worse than the younger subjects at identifying the medial vowel and the initial and final consonants in the silent-center condition. These results support the hypothesis of an age-related decrement in the ability to process dynamic perceptual cues in the perception of vowel quality.

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