Acquisition of a sensorimotor skill in younger and older adults

The present study compared the learning of sensorimotor transformation rules in young and elderly subjects. In a first experimental session, participants executed manual tracking movements first under normal, and then under left-right reversed visual feedback. Overall, seniors' tracking performance was lower. However, both age groups responded in a quantitatively similar way to the feedback change: Tracking errors increased by a similar amount at the onset of left-right reversal, and then gradually returned to the respective baseline levels. In a second session, visual up-down reversal was added to the left-right reversal. The initial increase of tracking error was substantially smaller than in the first session, and this benefit was even more pronounced in seniors. We interpret the benefit of the second session as learning-to-learn, i.e., as enhancement of a general ability to learn new skills, and conclude that in our study, learning-to-learn was more pronounced in elderly subjects.