Title
Aging and sensitivity to illusory target motion with or without secondary tasks
Author
de Dieuleveult, A.L.
Brouwer, A.M.
Siemonsma, P.C.
van Erp, J.B.F.
Brenner, E.
Publication year
2018
Abstract
Older individuals seem to find it more difficult to ignore inaccurate sensory cues than younger individuals. We examined whether this could be quantified using an interception task. Twenty healthy young adults (age 18–34) and twenty-four healthy older adults (age 60–82) were asked to tap on discs that were moving downwards on a screen with their finger. Moving the background to the left made the discs appear to move more to the right. Moving the background to the right made them appear to move more to the left. The discs disappeared before the finger reached the screen, so participants had to anticipate how the target would continue to move. We examined how misjudging the disc’s motion when the background moves influenced tapping. Participants received veridical feedback about their performance, so their sensitivity to the illusory motion indicates to what extent they could ignore the task-irrelevant visual information. We expected older adults to be more sensitive to the illusion than younger adults. To investigate whether sensorimotor or cognitive load would increase this sensitivity, we also asked participants to do the task while standing on foam or counting tones. Background motion influenced older adults more than younger adults. The secondary tasks did not increase the background’s influence. Older adults might be more sensitive to the moving background because they find it more difficult to ignore irrelevant sensory information in general, but they may rely more on vision because they have less reliable proprioceptive and vestibular information.
Subject
ELSS - Earth, Life and Social Sciences
Life Human & Operational Modelling
Activities of daily living
Background motion
Dual task
Elderly
Healthy aging
Secondary tasks
Sensory information
Sensory integration
Visual information
CH - Child Health PCS - Perceptual and Cognitive Systems
To reference this document use:
http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:ae0c4c2d-74c1-408e-978c-59ba2cea190a
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1163/22134808-00002596
TNO identifier
780880
Source
Multisensory Research, 31 (31), 227-249
Document type
article