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Updated: Jun 21, 2025
04:43
Visualizing Visual Adaptation
Published on: April 24, 2017
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Visuomotor adaptation across the lifespan.
Holly A Clayton1,2, Sahir Abbas1, Bernard Marius T Hart2
1Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Plos One
|July 11, 2024
Summary
Visuomotor learning, the ability to adapt movements, is similar in children and older adults compared to young adults. This suggests motor adaptation skills remain robust across the lifespan, even in gamified tasks.
Area of Science:
- Motor control
- Developmental psychology
- Human motor learning
Background:
- Motor adaptation is crucial for lifelong task performance.
- Visuomotor learning development in children and stability in the elderly are not well understood.
- Existing research on age-related motor adaptation changes is inconsistent.
Purpose of the Study:
- To compare visuomotor learning abilities across the human lifespan.
- To investigate if motor adaptation skills differ between age groups.
Main Methods:
- A gamified, center-out reaching task was employed.
- Participants (ages 7-67) were divided into five age groups.
- Visuomotor adaptation to a 45° rotation was measured.
Main Results:
- All age groups demonstrated similar performance in adaptation rate, learning extent, unlearning rate, generalization, and savings.
- Young children, older children, young adults, adults, and older adults adapted equally well.
- Short-term, gamified visuomotor learning showed no significant age-related differences.
Conclusions:
- Visuomotor learning abilities appear to be well-developed in children and remain stable into old age.
- Gamified tasks may provide a suitable platform for assessing motor adaptation across diverse age groups.
- Motor adaptation skills are robust throughout the lifespan, challenging previous assumptions of decline.
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