AGE-RELATED EFFECTS ON TEMPORAL STRATEGIES TO SPEED MOTOR-PERFORMANCE

The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of a single pract ice session on performance strategies used by young and older adults t o decrease movement time (MT) while maintaining accuracy of an aiming task. Five young and 5 older adult males practiced until each accumula ted 500 target hits in each of two complexity conditions as defined by Fitts' a law. Participants decreased MT with practice; however, older adults had longer MTs than the young, particularly in the high-comple xity condition. With practice in the low-complexity condition, partici pants decreased absolute acceleration and deceleration times but maint ained the relative amount of MT devoted to temporal phases. In contras t, with practice in the high-complexity condition, participants decrea sed absolute deceleration and dwell time and changed the temporal stru cture. Results suggest that older adults can decrease MT with practice and that the performance strategies adopted to speed performance are more a function of task complexity than age.