| Abstrakt: |
Motor behavior literature about the aging process has systematically shown differences in performance between young and old populations. Experimental designs involve groups of old, ranging from 60 to even over 90 years old, whereas groups of young people are usually represented by participants in their early 20s. Such procedures could hide developmental changes with the advance of age and, consequently, could lead to result misinterpretation. Therefore, the main purpose of this study was to verify whether there is an age effect on the performance in a motor task. An apparatus was used enabling a linear positioning combined with a manual force control task. Participants performed the motor task receiving verbal knowledge of result in ten trials about the immediately finished trial that provided information about accomplishing the goal of 20% of the maximum force and 35 cm of displacement. Performance was measured by absolute errors. The sample comprised 150 participants ranging from 60 to 86 years old (M = 68.39 years; SD = 6.24), who performed the task blindfolded and with nondominant hand. Correlation analysis did not show an age effect (p > 0.05), and, subsequently, the sample was divided in three groups: G60 (n = 8; mean age = 60; SD = 0), G70 (n = 8; mean age = 70; SD = 0), and G80 (n = 8; mean age = 82.38; SD = 2.0). A Kruskal-Wallis test did not show significant difference among groups in force (X² = 2.95; p = 0.56) and distance (X² = 3,73; p = 0.44). There was also an attempt to find practice effects comparing performance at the first (initial) and last (final) five trials, but the Mann-Whitney U test did not show significant difference for both, force (Z = -1.52; p = 0.12) and distance (Z = -1.15; p = 0.24). Despite instructor's empirical observation about differences in motor performance with aging, apart from fitness, surprisingly, the present study did not show such age effect on the performance of this particular motor task. Perhaps, considering that these participants were physically active, possible differences in motor performance owing to development were overcome by their lifestyle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
