Measuring age differences in executive control using rapid motor decisions in a robotic object hit and avoid task

Age-related declines in executive control are commonly assessed with neuropsychological tests that also rely on sensory and motor processes that are not typically measured in those tasks. It is therefore difficult to isolate the cognitive contributions from sensorimotor contributions to performance impairments. Rapid motor decision-making tasks may also be sensitive to age differences in executive control but allow for the measurement of sensorimotor contributors to task performance. Recently developed object hit (OH) and object hit and avoid (OHA) tasks using a robotic manipulandum are sensitive to motor and cognitive aspects of performance in stroke and Parkinson's disease. However, the impact of healthy aging, and the specific cognitive mechanisms involved in these tasks has not been assessed. We administered the OH and OHA tasks to 77 younger and 59 healthy older adults to evaluate the relative age differences in the perceptual-motor/sensory, movement coordination, and cognitive measures of performance. The Trail Making Test (TMT) Parts A and B were administered to assess the extent to which the cognitive contributors to OHA task performance are associated with executive functioning. After controlling for hand movement speed, age differences were largest for cognitive measures, with smaller differences in perceptual-motor speed and sensory measures, and little differences in bimanual and spatial coordination measures of performance. The cognitive measures were associated with executive functioning measures from the TMT task. These findings provide evidence that rapid motor decision-making tasks are sensitive to age differences in executive control and can isolate the cognitive from the sensorimotor contributions to task performance. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).