The Effect of Age on Relative Timing Variability and Transfer

The purpose of this study was to investigate potential qualitative differences in relative timing across age both within and across speed conditions. Forty right-handed males performed 48 trials of a five-component coincident-timing task at one speed and then 16 more at a different speed. The independent variables were age (5-7, 8-10, 11-13 years, and adult), speed (slow and fast), and block order (training and transfer). The results indicated that within-speed relative timing consistency improved with increasing age for movement-time and pause-time components, while a cross-speed transfer improved with age only for pause time. Movement velocity emerged as a more stable timing parameter than movement time across speeds for all groups. The last movement-time component correlated highly with the total response times, suggesting that coincident-timing accuracy was controlled to a large degree by a final, fine-tuning correction. These results imply that developmental deficits in relative timing increase the attention demands of a given task, thereby reducing a child’s capacity to concurrently control his movements and monitor events in the environment.