Age-Related Changes in Psychomotor Performance

The purpose of this investigation was to assess the influence of age relative to the response to changes in task difficulty within the performance of a discrete pursuit tracking task by adults from 20-89 years old. The results obtained suggest that although there was a significant age-related decrement in psychomotor performance, it was most prevalent in the 70-79 and 80-89 years age group. However, the data were quite stable across the younger age groups: 20-60 years. Hence, although providing support for the contention of age-related decrements in psychomotor performance with increasing age, this investigation indicates that the decrements may not be as dramatic or immediate as some studies may have previously implied.