Aging Effect on Visuomotor Adaptation: Mediated by Cognitive Decline
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Updated: Oct 13, 2025

Assessment of Age-related Changes in Cognitive Functions Using EmoCogMeter, a Novel Tablet-computer Based Approach
Published on: February 14, 2014
Na Li1, Guopeng Chen1, Yong Xie2
1Shanghai Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics, Affiliated Mental Health Center, School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China.
Abstract:
The question of whether and how aging affects humans' visuomotor adaptation remains controversial. This study investigates how the effect of aging on visuomotor adaptation is related to age-related cognitive declines. We compared the performance of 100 older people (age: 55-82 years) and 20 young adults (age: 18-27 years) on a visuomotor adaptation task and three cognition tasks. A decline in visuomotor adaptation of older people was well observed. However, this decline was not strongly correlated with chronological age increase but was associated to the age-related declines of cognitive functions and speed of motor planning. We then constructed a structural mediation model in which the declined cognitive resources mediated the effect of age increase on the decline in visuomotor adaptation. The data from the present study was well-explained by the mediation model. These findings indicate that the aging effect on visuomotor adaptation mainly reflects the age-related decline of cognitive functions, which results in insufficient explicit processing on visual perturbation during visuomotor control.
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