Author(s): TAKEICHI, M., ARAI, T., NAKAJIMA, N., TOEDA, M., YAMAZAKI, K., MATSUURA, T., Institution: KOKUSHIKAN UNIVERSITY, Country: JAPAN, Abstract-ID: 1311

[Introduction]
In ball sports, intercepting the moving object (ball) is a crucial skill. The process of interception can be divided into three phases: cognition of moving objects, anticipation of position and timing, and motor control of the body. We have investigated cognitive and anticipatory characteristics, excluding motor control phases, in participants ranging from their teens to their eighties. The cognitive characteristics evaluated the velocity of visible moving objects (cognitive velocity), while the anticipatory characteristics evaluated the velocity of occluded moving objects (anticipated velocity). As a result, both cognitive velocity and anticipated velocity showed a tendency to decline with age.
However, this is based on cross-sectional data. The aim of this study is to examine specific age-related changes by tracking cognitive velocity and anticipatory velocity over a 9-year period.

[Method]
The participant was a 73-year-old woman who underwent five surveys over a 9-year period from age 64 to 73. The Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) was judged to be within the normal range. Participants observed the motion of the ball displayed on the screen and reported the ball's position at the time the visual stimulus was presented. The ball moved horizontally from left to right at a constant velocity of 10 degrees per second. A rectangular area with scale was positioned to the right side from the center of the display.
The experiment was conducted under visible and occluded conditions. Under visible condition, participants answered the ball's position at the moment the board changed color (trigger stimulus) while the ball moved across the front of the rectangular area. Under the occluded condition, participants answered the ball's position at the moment the board changed color while the ball was moving behind the rectangular area. The trigger stimulus was presented as a color change from blue to purple at five timings—200, 400, 600, 800, and 1000 ms—after entering the rectangular area. Twenty trials were carried out under each condition. Cognitive velocity under visible condition and anticipated velocity under occluded condition were calculated from the scatter plot of the time until trigger stimulus presentation and the answered position.

[Result]
The cognitive velocities were 9.4 deg s⁻¹ for age 64, 9.1 deg s⁻¹ for age 67, 7.0 deg s⁻¹ for age 70, 5.3 deg s⁻¹ for age 72, and 4.0 deg s⁻¹ for age 73. The anticipated velocities were 3.8deg s-1 for age 64, 2.6deg s-1 for age 67, 2.0deg s-1 for age 70, 2.8deg s-1 for age 72, and 3.0deg s-1 for age 73.

[Conclusion]
The decline in cognitive velocity suggests impaired perception of moving objects' velocities, as they are perceived slower than their actual velocities. Analyzing data from older adults may indirectly enable the evaluation of cognitive and anticipatory characteristics for assessing dementia and aging.