Aging and attenuated processing robustness. Evidence from cognitive and sensorimotor functioning.
BACKGROUND
Within-person, across-time variations in processes and performance are intrinsic to all aspects of human functioning.


OBJECTIVE
This article starts with a brief taxonomy of intraindividual dynamics. There are adaptive as well as non-adaptive types of intraindividual variations that unfold with different degrees of reversibility on different time scales and involve either single, or systems of, functions.


METHODS
Empirical findings regarding aging and a specific type of intraindividual variation, namely attenuated processing robustness, are then presented with respect to cognitive and sensorimotor functioning.


RESULTS
In both domains of functioning, old adults exhibit less robust functioning with a greater amount of week-to-week, day-to-day, or trial-by-trial fluctuations in their cognitive, walking, and postural control performances.


CONCLUSIONS
Currently, the causes for the attenuation of processing robustness in cognitive and sensorimotor functioning are not well understood. Neurocomputational models are useful tools for exploring the tripartite relationships between the aging of neural information-processing fidelity, and cognitive, and sensorimotor processes.
Li
Shu-Chen
SC
Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany. Shuchen@mpib-belin.mpg.de
Huxhold
Oliver
O
Schmiedek
Florian
F
D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008606:Mental Processes / Q000502:physiology*; D008960:Models, Psychological; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*