Slower Visuomotor Corrections with Unchanged Latency are Consistent with Optimal Adaptation to Increased Endogenous Noise in the Elderly

We analyzed age-related changes in motor response in a visuomotor compensatory tracking task. Subjects used a manipulandum to attempt to keep a displayed cursor at the center of a screen despite random perturbations to its location. Cross-correlation analysis of the perturbation and the subject response showed no age-related increase in latency until the onset of response to the perturbation, but substantial slowing of the response itself. Results are consistent with age-related deterioration in the ratio of signal to noise in visuomotor response. The task is such that it is tractable to use Bayesian and quadratic optimality assumptions to construct a model for behavior. This model assumes that behavior resembles an optimal controller subject to noise, and parametrizes response in terms of latency, willingness to expend effort, noise intensity, and noise bandwidth. The model is consistent with the data for all young (n = 12, age 20–30) and most elderly (n = 12, age 65–92) subjects. The model reproduces the latency result from the cross-correlation method. When presented with increased noise, the computational model reproduces the experimentally observed age-related slowing and the observed lack of increased latency. The model provides a precise way to quantitatively formulate the long-standing hypothesis that age-related slowing is an adaptation to increased noise.