Age-related decline in sensory processing for locomotion and interception

The ability to control locomotion through the environment and to intercept, or avoid objects is fundamental to the survival of all locomotor species. The extent to which this control relies upon optic flow, visual direction cues or non-visual sensory inputs has long been debated. Here we look at the use of sensory information in young and middle-aged participants using a locomotor-driven interceptive task. Both groups of participants were asked to produce forward displacements in more or less impoverished environments by manipulating a joystick and to regulate, if necessary, their displacement velocity so as to intercept approaching targets. We show that the displacements produced by the middle-aged participants were more nonlinear in comparison with young participants. The errors in the middle-aged group can be accounted for by a constant bearing angle (CBA) model that incorporates a decrease in the sensitivity of sensory detection with advancing age. The implications of this study to a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying the detection of the rate of change in bearing angle are discussed.

Research Highlights▶We study Young and Middle-aged Humans behavior intercepting balls in virtual reality. ▶Young adults performed better than middle-aged adults. ▶Visual content only influenced performance of the middle-aged group. ▶Middle-aged adults demonstrated more kinematic nonlinearity. ▶Kinematics were adequately captured by an adapted version of the CBA model.