Work

Double-Step Adaptation of Saccadic Eye Movements Is Influenced by Priming with Age Stereotypies

Year: 2013

Type: article

Abstract: Age related deficits of sensorimotor adaptation have been observed earlier with arm, but not with eye movements. Here we evaluate whether deficits of eye adaptation may depend on the subjects’ believes about their own sensorimotor abilities. To find out, elderly subjects were primed with positive or negative age stereotypes using the scrambled-sentence task, and were then exposed to a double-step saccade adaptation task. The outcome was compared to data from an earlier study with unprimed elderly persons. We found adaptation to be stronger after positive priming than after negative or no priming, with no difference between the latter two. Aftereffects of adaptation were not modified by priming. From this we conclude that positive primes enhanced workaround strategies, but not adaptive recalibration, while negative primes failed completely, possibly because of a floor effect.

Source: Psychology

DOI: 10.4236/psych.2013.412147

Authors: Otmar Bock, Valentina Grigorova, Milena Ilieva

Institutions: German Sport University Cologne, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Neurobiology

Language: English

Topic: Aging and Gerontology Research

Subfield: Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: diamond

OpenAlex ID: W2006929155