The 50s cliff: a decline in perceptuo-motor learning, not a deficit in visual motion perception.

ABSTRACT: Previously, we measured perceptuo-motor learning rates across the lifespan and found a sudden drop in learning rates between ages 50 and 60, called the "50s cliff." The task was a unimanual visual rhythmic coordination task in which participants used a joystick to oscillate one dot in a display in coordination with another dot oscillated by a computer. Participants learned to produce a coordination with a 90° relative phase relation between the dots. Learning rates for participants over 60 were half those of younger participants. Given existing evidence for visual motion perception deficits in people over 60 and the role of visual motion perception in the coordination task, it remained unclear whether the 50s cliff reflected onset of this deficit or a genuine decline in perceptuo-motor lea

SUBMITTER: Ren J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4395368 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature