Abstract
Typically studies of the effects of aging on cognitive-motor performance emphasize changes in elderly populations. Although some research is directly concerned with when age-related decline actually begins, studies are often based on relatively simple reaction time tasks, making it impossible to gauge the impact of experience in compensating for this decline in a real world task. The present study investigates age-related changes in cognitive motor performance through adolescence and adulthood in a complex real world task, the real-time strategy video game StarCraft 2. In this paper we analyze the influence of age on performance using a dataset of 3,305 players, aged 16-44, collected by Thompson, Blair, Chen & Henrey [1]. Using a piecewise regression analysis, we find that age-related slowing of within-game, self-initiated response times begins at 24 years of age. We find no evidence for the common belief expertise should attenuate domain-specific cognitive decline. Domain-specific response time declines appear to persist regardless of skill level. A second analysis of dual-task performance finds no evidence of a corresponding age-related decline. Finally, an exploratory analyses of other age-related differences suggests that older participants may have been compensating for a loss in response speed through the use of game mechanics that reduce cognitive load.
Highlights
Among the general public, people tend to think of middle age as being roughly 45 years of age, after which there are obvious agerelated declines in cognitive-motor functioning
The variable is analogous to reaction time [9], in that players are presented with new stimuli as they make new fixations, but differs in that players initiate such changes themselves
In an article entitled ‘‘When does cognitive aging begin?’’ Salthouse [2], summarized the available aging evidence and concluded that the correct answer is that general cognitive decline begins in the 20 s and 30 s
Summary
People tend to think of middle age as being roughly 45 years of age, after which there are obvious agerelated declines in cognitive-motor functioning. Once ‘‘over the hill’’, experience and wisdom, the consolation prizes of age, are hoped to be sufficient to either attenuate this decline or at least compensate for it indirectly. There is much evidence that memory and speed on a variety of cognitive tasks may peak much earlier [2,3,4,5]. The pervasive intuition may still have merit if declines are restricted to laboratory tasks and are not noticeable in, or relevant to, real world performance. A complete understanding of the ‘‘over-the-hill’’ intuition would seem to require a look for age-related declines in direct measures of real world performance
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