title: 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 learning. The current work addressed this question. Two groups of 12 participants in each of four age ranges (20s, 50s, 60s, 70s) learned to perform a bimanual coordination of 90° relative phase. One group trained with only haptic information and the other group with both haptic and visual information about relative phase. Both groups were tested in both information conditions at baseline and post-test. If the 50s cliff was caused by an age dependent deficit in visual motion perception, then older participants in the visual group should have exhibited less learning than those in the haptic group, which should not exhibit the 50s cliff, and older participants in both groups should have performed less well when tested with visual information. Neither of these expectations was confirmed by the results, so we concluded that the 50s cliff reflects a genuine decline in perceptuo-motor learning with aging, not the onset of a deficit in visual motion perception.
authors: Key Laboratory of Exercise and Health Sciences, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, China.
authors: Jie
authors: J
authors: Ren
authors: Key Laboratory of Exercise and Health Sciences, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, China.
authors: Shaochen
authors: S
authors: Huang
authors: Key Laboratory of Exercise and Health Sciences, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, China.
authors: Jiancheng
authors: J
authors: Zhang
authors: Key Laboratory of Exercise and Health Sciences, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, China; Kinesiology and Health, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY, United States of America.
authors: Qin
authors: Q
authors: Zhu
authors: Social, Psychological & Communication Sciences, Leeds Metropolitan University, Leeds, United Kingdom.
authors: Andrew D
authors: AD
authors: Wilson
authors: Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, United States of America.
authors: Winona
authors: W
authors: Snapp-Childs
authors: Key Laboratory of Exercise and Health Sciences, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, China; Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, United States of America.
authors: Geoffrey P
authors: GP
authors: Bingham
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009039:Motion Perception; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D014796:Visual Perception; D055815:Young Adult