Abstract
Age-related slowing is one of the most robust findings in gerontology. Its locus is almost certainly within the central nervous system and its cause has been the thrust of much of modern geropsychology. The specific or general nature of the slowing has also received much attention both from an information processing perspective and from a neuropsychological approach. This presentation will outline a series of experiments which include information processing and kinematic motion analysis to focus on the phenomena of age-related slowing and possible explanations. The argument is made that the process of aging results in a disorganization of the central nervous system, such that quantitative (slowing) and qualitative (discoordination) changes are seen. This disorganization may be modelled using neural networks and, with respect to movement, the notion of selective disintegration of coordinative structures. If the degrees of freedom that are usually constrained to act as a unit must be independently controlled in the elderly, the cost could very well be slowness and loss of coordination.
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Buckles, V.D. (1993). Age-Related Slowing. In: Stelmach, G.E., Hömberg, V. (eds) Sensorimotor Impairment in the Elderly. NATO ASI Series, vol 75. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-1976-4_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-1976-4_6
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