Interacting Effects of Cognitive Load and Adult Age on the Regularity of Whole-Body Motion During Treadmill Walking
(2009) In Psychology and Aging 24(1). p.75-81- Abstract
- 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... (More)
- 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. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/1401702
- author
- Verrel, Julius ; Lövdén, Martin LU ; Schellenbach, Michael ; Schaefer, Sabine and Lindenberger, Ulman
- organization
- publishing date
- 2009
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- aging, dual-tasking, gait, principal component analysis, working memory
- in
- Psychology and Aging
- volume
- 24
- issue
- 1
- pages
- 75 - 81
- publisher
- American Psychological Association (APA)
- external identifiers
-
- wos:000264315800007
- scopus:64649094323
- pmid:19290739
- ISSN
- 0882-7974
- DOI
- 10.1037/a0014272
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 06f004f2-1be5-4a47-971f-928cdc3943cf (old id 1401702)
- date added to LUP
- 2016-04-01 14:48:39
- date last changed
- 2025-04-04 14:05:36
@article{06f004f2-1be5-4a47-971f-928cdc3943cf,
abstract = {{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.}},
author = {{Verrel, Julius and Lövdén, Martin and Schellenbach, Michael and Schaefer, Sabine and Lindenberger, Ulman}},
issn = {{0882-7974}},
keywords = {{aging; dual-tasking; gait; principal component analysis; working memory}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{1}},
pages = {{75--81}},
publisher = {{American Psychological Association (APA)}},
series = {{Psychology and Aging}},
title = {{Interacting Effects of Cognitive Load and Adult Age on the Regularity of Whole-Body Motion During Treadmill Walking}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0014272}},
doi = {{10.1037/a0014272}},
volume = {{24}},
year = {{2009}},
}