Differences in chunking behavior between young and older adults diminish with extended practice

Abstract

Previous research found reduced motor chunking behavior in older adults compared to young adults. However, it remains unclear whether older adults are unable to use a chunking strategy or whether they are just slower in developing them. Our goal was to investigate the effect of extended practice on the development of chunking behavior in healthy older adults. A group of young and a group of healthy older adults between 74 and 85 years of age visited the lab on 2 days. A sequence of 3 and a sequence of 6 elements were both practiced 432 times in a discrete sequence production task. We found that age differences in chunking behavior, as measured by the difference between initiation and execution of the sequence, diminish with extended practice. Furthermore, in older, but not in young adults, slow responses that are often interpreted as the first response of a next motor chunk were associated with a finger that was also slow during performance of the random sequences. This finding calls for more attention to biomechanical factors in future theory about aging and sequence learning.

Regular participation in leisure time activities and high cardiovascular fitness improve motor sequence learning in older adults

“…Both groups developed differently during practice with older adults showing less performance increase than young adults over time. This is in line with earlier studies using the DSP task (Barnhoorn et al, 2016 , 2017 ). Only in older adults error rate was higher with the complex than with the simple sequence.…”

“…Another example of a motor sequencing task is the serial reaction time task, which, in contrast to the DSP task, implies no discrete sequences (Abrahamse, Ruitenberg, de Kleine, & Verwey, 2013 ). In general, older adults perform the DSP task more slowly than young adults (Barnhoorn, Döhring, Van Asseldonk, & Verwey, 2016 ; Barnhoorn, Van Asseldonk, & Verwey, 2017 ; Verwey, 2010 ). Still, older adults show considerable improvements in DSP task performance with practice, as reflected especially in an increased performance speed (Barnhoorn et al, 2016 , 2017 ; Verwey, 2010 ).…”

“…In general, older adults perform the DSP task more slowly than young adults (Barnhoorn, Döhring, Van Asseldonk, & Verwey, 2016 ; Barnhoorn, Van Asseldonk, & Verwey, 2017 ; Verwey, 2010 ). Still, older adults show considerable improvements in DSP task performance with practice, as reflected especially in an increased performance speed (Barnhoorn et al, 2016 , 2017 ; Verwey, 2010 ). Even though it is widely accepted that performance improvement with practice is less in older than in young adults (Daselaar et al, 2003 ; Wu & Hallet, 2005 ), some studies reported little differences between young and older adults (Bhakuni & Mutha, 2015 ; Howard & Howard, 1989 , 1992 ) or even steeper learning slopes in older adults (Brown, Robertson, & Press, 2009 ; Ehsani, Abdollahi, Mohseni Bandpei, Zahiri, & Jaberzadeh, 2015 ).…”

Skill in discrete keying sequences is execution rate specific

“…This has been observed in both the SRT task (Curran & Keele, 1993 ; Mayr, 1996 ; Rüsseler, Kuhlicke, & Münte, 2003 ) and the DSP task (Ruitenberg, Abrahamse, De Kleine, & Verwey, 2012 ; Verwey & Abrahamse, 2012 ; Verwey, Abrahamse, & De Kleine, 2010 ; Verwey et al, 2011 ). This benefit of explicit sequence knowledge seems larger as the sequence is executed at lower execution rates, like with limited practice (Verwey & Wright, 2014 ), when deviating stimuli are expected (Verwey, 2015 ; Verwey & Abrahamse, 2012 ), and when participants are older (Barnhoorn, Van Asseldonk, & Verwey, 2017 ).…”

“… 5 Recent results indicate that in older adults this slow response may also be attributed to a slow finger (Barnhoorn et al 2017 ). …”