Interacting Effects of Cognitive Load and Adult Age on the Regularity of Whole-Body Motion During Treadmill Walking

Summary, in English

We investigated effects of concurrent cognitive task difficulty (n-back) on the regularity of whole-body movements during treadmill walking in women and men from 3 age groups (20-30, 60-70, and 70-80 years old). Using principal component analysis of individual gait patterns, we separated main (regular) from residual (irregular) components of whole-body motion. Proportion of residual variance (RV) was used as an index of gait irregularity. The gait in all age groups became more regular (reduced RV) upon introduction of a simple cognitive task (1-back), relative to walking without a concurrent cognitive task. In contrast, parametrically increasing working memory load from 1-back to 4-back led to age-differential effects, with gait patterns becoming more regular in those 20-30 years old, becoming less regular in those 70-80 years old, and showing no significant effects in those 60-70 years old. Our results support the dual-process account of sensorimotor-cognitive interactions (O. Huxhold, S.-C. Li, F. Schmiedek, and U. Lindenberger, 2006), with age-general effects of internal versus external attentional focus and age-specific effects of resource competition with increasing cognitive task difficulty.

• Författare: Julius Verrel; Martin Lövdén; Michael Schellenbach; Sabine Schaefer; Ulman Lindenberger
• Avdelning/ar: Institutionen för psykologi
• Publiceringsår: 2009
• Språk: Engelska
• Sidor: 75-81
• Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie: Psychology and Aging
• Volym: 24
• Issue: 1
• Länkar: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0014272
• Dokumenttyp: Artikel i tidskrift
• Förlag: American Psychological Association (APA)
• Ämne: Psychology
• Nyckelord: aging; dual-tasking; gait; principal component analysis; working memory
• Status: Published
• ISBN/ISSN/Övrigt: ISSN: 0882-7974