Abstract
Numerous activities require an individual to respond quickly to the correct stimulus. The provision of advance information allows response priming but heightened responses can cause errors (responding too early or reacting to the wrong stimulus). Thus, a balance is required between the online cognitive mechanisms (inhibitory and anticipatory) used to prepare and execute a motor response at the appropriate time. We investigated the use of advance information in 71 participants across four different age groups: (i) children, (ii) young adults, (iii) middle-aged adults, and (iv) older adults. We implemented ‘cued’ and ‘non-cued’ conditions to assess age-related changes in saccadic and touch responses to targets in three movement conditions: (a) Eyes only; (b) Hands only; (c) Eyes and Hand. Children made less saccade errors compared to young adults, but they also exhibited longer response times in cued versus non-cued conditions. In contrast, older adults showed faster responses in cued conditions but exhibited more errors. The results indicate that young adults (18–25 years) achieve an optimal balance between anticipation and execution. In contrast, children show benefits (few errors) and costs (slow responses) of good inhibition when preparing a motor response based on advance information; whilst older adults show the benefits and costs associated with a prospective response strategy (i.e., good anticipation).
Highlights
The neurophysiological limits of information processing produce temporal lags in a human’s response to environmental change
Post-hoc tests showed that all groups exhibited differences in saccade latencies between C and NC tasks except for the young adults (P = 0.18)
The analysis showed that MA and OA significantly decreased their saccade latencies during the C compared to the NC tasks (P < 0.001)
Summary
The neurophysiological limits of information processing produce temporal lags in a human’s response to environmental change. The existence of response delays is potentially detrimental from an evolutionary perspective so it is unsurprising that humans have developed neural mechanisms that can exploit information to prepare a motor response in advance of an anticipated change in the environment. These mechanisms have been investigated by researchers using ‘cueing’ techniques where advance information (e.g., a target’s location) is provided prior to the presentation of a stimulus [1]. For example, cues have been shown to facilitate the generation of a saccadic eye movement [2,3].
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