Propositional speech production may become more challenging with aging, particularly under conditions of increased cognitive demand. While the factors contributing to speech production difficulties are relatively well documented, far less is known about how speech production might be supported. This study examined whether brief cues presented during the speech conceptual preparation stage (i.e., the internal generation and organization of ideas prior to articulation) facilitate propositional speech production. Thirty-two younger and 26 older adults completed a propositional speech production task that required internally generated responses to complex scenes following a 5-s preparation interval. During this preparation phase, task-relevant, nonsemantic visual or auditory stimuli were presented (or absent). Two-way mixed analyses of variance and regression analyses were conducted to examine group and stimulus effects, relationships between response latency and speech errors, and the role of cognitive predictors. In the absence of external stimuli, older adults produced less fluent (more filled pauses) speech with lower propositional density and exhibited a weaker relationship between response latency and errorless speech than younger adults. The presence of brief visual or auditory stimuli significantly reduced dysfluency and increased propositional density in older adults, indicating that such cues could facilitate conceptual preparation. However, regardless of cue condition, older adults exhibited slower response initiation, reduced speech rate, and higher error rates. Across both age groups, auditory cueing was associated with faster yet less accurate performance. These findings suggest that brief, meaningless cues could facilitate sustained engagement in idea generation and expression in older adults, though their potential value in everyday communication remains to be tested with naturalistic paradigms. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Nomophobia, the fear of being without mobile phones, has emerged as a problem among older adults with the growing popularity of smartphones. This study aims to examine how older adults' nomophobia is associated with their use frequency of different functions on smartphones, as well as their attitudes toward aging. A cross-sectional questionnaire survey (N = 315) was conducted in mainland China. Our findings revealed that older adults' nomophobia was positively associated with their use of instrumental, social, information, and production functions on smartphones, yet negatively associated with their mental health. In addition, older adults' attitudes toward aging, along with frequent use of social functions, were found to indirectly relate to their nomophobia through the mediation of their mental health. The findings revealed the complexity between older adults' smartphone dependency and mental health, highlighting the roles of their daily smartphone use behavior and attitudes toward aging. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
The relationship between physiological arousal and emotional memory enhancement is well established, but how this relationship changes with age remains unclear, especially in understudied middle-aged adults. The present study investigated the impact of physiological arousal on memory for emotional and neutral information across young adulthood and middle age. In this experiment, healthy young (ages 18-35; n = 55) and middle-aged (ages 36-59; n = 41) adults encoded scenes containing negative or neutral objects superimposed on neutral backgrounds, while their physiological arousal was recorded. During the memory test, participants indicated whether objects and backgrounds were same, similar, or new compared to the images they viewed during encoding. Memory for negative versus neutral objects (negative-neutral objects, or negative memory difference) was assessed. We found that heart rate deceleration (HRD) was associated with enhanced negative memory difference, while skin conductance response (SCR) amplitude was linked to a reduced negative memory difference. We also calculated memory trade-off scores to examine memory for central objects relative to their paired backgrounds, separately for scenes with negative (negative memory trade-off) and neutral central objects (neutral memory trade-off). Steeper HRD was linked to an increased negative memory trade-off, while higher SCR amplitude was associated with a decrease in the neutral trade-off effect. Parasympathetically driven HRD may be a more robust predictor of arousal-related memory enhancement than sympathetically driven SCR, especially in middle-aged adults. These findings highlight the importance of considering early age-related changes in autonomic function when examining changes in memory. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Research on the effect of valence on memory in aging presents a clear contradiction. The age-related positivity effect is an interaction between age and valence: Relative to younger adults, older adults preferentially attend to and remember positive over negative information. The contradiction arises because recent studies with younger adults have shown that when stimuli are more carefully equated, valence exerts no influence on memory for words. The present studies addressed this inconsistency using stimuli that are more fully equated. In the first three experiments, older adults aged between 65 and 80 completed recognition tests of positive, negative, and neutral words that also varied in concreteness. Recognition was chosen because it allows sensitivity (the ability to distinguish studied from new words) to be separated from response bias (a general tendency to respond "old" or "new"). The results consistently showed better memory for concrete than abstract words, replicating robust concreteness effects but no effect of valence on sensitivity. In the fourth experiment, both younger (age 18-25) and older (age 65-79) adults completed recognition tests of positive and negative words that all were low arousal. Once again, there was no evidence that valence affected memory for either age group. In addition, a cross-paper analysis directly comparing the older adult data from Experiment 1 of the present study with younger adult data from a previous publication confirmed the absence of an age-by-valence interaction. These findings replicate the null effects of valence in younger adults and older adults and constrain the scope of the age-related positivity effect, suggesting it may reflect response tendencies rather than differences in memory accuracy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Prior research suggests that naturally occurring leisure activities may exert short-term, time-lagged benefits on cognition over hours in middle- and older aged adults. We extended this work by examining short-term activity-cognition dynamics in two ambulatory assessment studies of U.S. adults spanning diverse demographic backgrounds, using a continuous-time modeling framework. Both studies involved repeated smartphone-based assessments of leisure activities (cognitive [Study 1 only], social, physical, and passive) and cognitive performance (processing speed and spatial working memory) over 2 weeks. Study 1 included 288 older adults (nobservations = 16,057, Mage = 77.08, 58% non-White). Hierarchical Bayesian continuous-time dynamic models indicated that, compared with intervals without cognitive, social, or passive activities, intervals with these activities showed beneficial within-person cross-effects on subsequent processing speed and working memory over hours. In contrast, activities and cognition showed negative within-person correlated random fluctuations, reflecting faster timescale co-occurring relations in opposite directions. At the between-person level, more frequent engagement in cognitive, social, and physical activities was associated with better cognition, whereas greater engagement in passive activities was associated with poorer cognition. Study 2 included 224 young and middle-aged adults (nobservations = 12,928, Mage = 44.67, 92% non-White). Replicating the older adult findings, moments dominated by passive activities showed beneficial within-person cross-effects on subsequent processing speed, alongside negatively correlated random fluctuations. In contrast, between-person associations indicated that greater engagement in passive activities was related to better working memory. Overall, these findings demonstrate short-term activity-cognition cross-effects while underscoring their complexity, as associations may differ across timescales and life stages. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Virtual reality has demonstrated its usability, acceptability, and clinical benefits. Its application in palliative care has grown steadily to address both physical and psychological symptoms. This study aims to systematically review the scientific literature on the use of virtual reality in palliative care across the lifespan. A comprehensive search was conducted in five databases from inception to June 2025 using keywords such as « Virtual Reality », « Palliative Care », and « End-of-Life». Abstracts and titles were independently screened using COVIDENCE software, followed by an independent full-text review. In the final phase, four independent reviewers performed data extraction, assessed the level of immersion, evaluated study quality, and reported adverse effects. Of the 1,395 records, 54 studies met the inclusion criteria. Overall, study quality was judged to be good, and most of them involved high levels of immersion. The majority of studies included mixed samples of adults and older adults, while relatively few focused exclusively on children or older adults. Adverse reactions were reported in 9% of the studies. Virtual reality was used for clinical purposes in end-of-life care, other life-limiting conditions, cancer care, palliative care education and training, support for family caregivers, and facilitation of end-of-life decision making. In conclusion, virtual reality appears to be a safe, feasible, and nonpharmacological intervention for managing physical and psychological symptoms in individuals receiving palliative care across the lifespan. In addition, virtual reality shows promise as a supportive tool for family caregivers and as an effective educational strategy in palliative care. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
How people anticipate their own aging may influence whether and how they stay socially engaged in later life. This study examined whether future self-views of aging predict self-reported social activities over time and whether social activities, in turn, shape individuals' future self-views of aging. Data were drawn from 459 German adults aged 30-80 years, assessed at three time points over a 10-year period. Participants reported their future self-views of aging in three social domains-family, friendship, and formal engagement-as well as their weekly hours spent in domain-matched social activities. We applied random-intercept cross-lagged panel models to test within-person, bidirectional associations and conducted age-group comparisons. More positive future self-views of aging predicted increases in corresponding social activities over time-but not vice versa. In age-group analyses, an association between family-related future self-views of aging and later family activities emerged specifically among older adults. These associations remained when adjusting for subjective health, age, neuroticism, extraversion, and partnership status. Expectations about aging and formal engagement (e.g., clubs or volunteering) predicted behavior only among participants without a partner. Overall, the findings suggest that how individuals envision their aging selves is prospectively related to their social engagement, with associations differing by age and relational domain. Future self-views of aging may represent one motivational pathway through which adults maintain social involvement, particularly in developmentally salient domains or when close relational resources are limited. Interventions that foster more positive expectations about one's own aging may help support sustained social participation across adulthood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Schemas are abstract representations that aid memory performance by providing a structured context through which memories can be both encoded and retrieved. Older adults have been shown to particularly benefit from schema support as a memory aid. Yet, while helpful to true memory for schematic information, reliance on schemas has also been shown to lead to high rates of false memories for novel yet schematically related information, as well as diminished memory for information that falls outside of an active schema. The current research sought to examine how systematically manipulating naturalistic contextualization as well as the density of schematic information present during encoding may alter subsequent true and false memory for both schematic and nonschematic information. To examine this, we systematically altered the ratio of schematic-to-nonschematic information present during encoding across four conditions in a sample of healthy younger and older adults. Overall, both younger and older adults responded more accurately to schematic compared to nonschematic targets, replicating past work highlighting the benefit of schemas to memory performance. Results also showed that systematically reducing the amount of schematic information present at encoding improved memory discriminability. Specifically, as there was less schematic information present at encoding, false alarms to schematic lures decreased, and hits to nonschematic targets increased. Additionally, when items were decontextualized from a naturalistic scene, false alarms to nonschematic lures decreased. Hits to schematic targets were equitable across conditions. Taken together, the results demonstrate that while schemas maintain a strong influence on memory performance across the lifespan, this effect can be manipulated with reduced schematic information. Such findings reveal the extent to which the pervasive influence of schemas on memory can be swayed by manipulating the amount of schematic information present during encoding and provide critical knowledge for the optimal usage of schemas as a memory support across the lifespan. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Age-based stereotype threat (ABST) occurs when older adults worry about being judged by a negative ageist stereotype. Although ABST can impair cognitive performance, its underlying mechanisms remain unclear, and two prominent frameworks offer different explanations. The integrated process model proposes that ABST heightens arousal, negative affect, and self-monitoring, which together consume working-memory resources and reduce processing efficiency. In a working-memory task, ABST should therefore lead to reduced hits, slower responding, increased false alarms, and slower evidence accumulation (i.e., lower drift rates in a drift diffusion model). In contrast, the regulatory focus account proposes that ABST induces a prevention focus that prioritizes vigilance and avoids commission errors. ABST should therefore lead to reduced hits, slower responding, reduced false alarms, increased omissions, and increased response caution (i.e., higher boundary separation in a drift diffusion model). To test these predictions, older adults completed a baseline 2-back task and then repeated the task under either control instructions or instructions designed to elicit ABST. Compared with the control condition, participants in the ABST condition showed reduced practice-related gains in hit rates and a selective increase in omissions. No ABST effects were observed for response times, false alarms, drift rates, or boundary separation. Although this pattern aligns with some aspects of the regulatory focus account, ABST did not consistently result in more cautious responding, and the ABST-related increase in omissions could also reflect reduced working-memory efficiency. Overall, the findings suggest that ABST can undermine correct responding without producing clear changes in underlying decision parameters. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Older adults often suffer from financial exploitations due to impaired decision-making. Meanwhile, older adults exhibit declined episodic memory in terms of lower recognition and associative memories compared with younger adults. An interesting yet unanswered question is whether there is a direct impact of age-related memory impairment on older adults' decision-making, especially under gain and loss contexts. In the present study, younger and older adults played an investment game in which they learned that some agent faces from an investment institution helped them gain money and some made them lose money. In a subsequent decision-making phase, they chose between different agents to achieve gains and avoid losses, and finally their memories were tested. Older adults showed poorer associative memory than younger adults, which led to their lower decision-making performance than younger adults regardless of gain/loss contexts, showing a symmetric aging effect of decision-making impairment under gain and loss contexts. Critically, we found that associative memory drove older adults' decision-making less efficiently as it did for younger adults in both gain and loss contexts. These results provide supporting evidence for the associative deficit hypothesis and a dissociation between episodic memory and decision-making in older adults. Hence, our study has uncovered potential mnemonic mechanisms underlying older adults' financial decision-making deficiency. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Previous research has consistently shown a positivity bias in old adults, with a preference for remembering positive information, primarily in tasks involving intentional learning, such as free recall. This study examined age-related differences in incidental learning of emotional stimuli, specifically examining how emotional valence influences memory within the framework of the Visual Statistical Learning (VSL) task. Participants across two age groups (young and old adults) viewed streams of object images with varying emotional valences (negative, positive, neutral) organized into triplets, unaware of their underlying structure. Subsequently, participants completed both a recognition test, assessing their ability to identify previously encountered triplets, and a free recall task. Results revealed no significant differences in overall VSL performance between age groups, indicating that the ability to extract statistical regularities remains stable across the lifespan. Interestingly, while old adults exhibited a positivity bias in free recall, as expected, this pattern was not observed in the VSL task, in which both young and old adults showed enhanced recognition of negative stimuli. These results highlight that the advantage in VSL is specific to negative stimuli. Critically, they reveal a dissociation, where positive stimuli were better recalled but did not enhance VSL performance, whereas negative stimuli enhanced VSL but were not preferentially recalled. Together, these findings suggest that the positivity effect depends on the form of retrieval, and underscore the crucial role of the retrieval process in shaping how emotional valence influences memory across different age groups, even when learning is incidental.
Previous research has shown that episodic and semantic long-term memory (LTM) can support working memory (WM) performance in young adults. When remembering word pairs, performance improves when pairs have been previously learned (episodic LTM) or are semantically related (semantic LTM, e.g., table-chair). However, these types of LTM support are typically examined in isolation, and it remains unclear whether they contribute to WM via distinct mechanisms or whether their roles change with age. Across three experiments, younger and older adults completed word-pair WM tasks that independently manipulated episodic and semantic LTM support (Experiment 1a: N = 56 younger adults, N = 56 older adults; Experiment 1b: N = 55 younger adults; Experiment 2: N = 59 younger adults, N = 60 older adults). We examined whether older adults may benefit from both forms of LTM within the same task, how episodic and semantic support interact, and which mechanisms underlie the semantic benefit to WM. The results show that both younger and older adults reliably benefited from episodic LTM support. Semantic relatedness also improved WM performance across age groups. Critically, analyses targeting underlying mechanisms indicated that the semantic benefit arose from facilitated formation of episodic traces within the activated portion of LTM, rather than from strengthened bindings maintained within WM itself. Together, these findings demonstrate that WM flexibly draws on episodic and semantic LTM and that this capacity remains largely intact in older adulthood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
We rely on the efficient processing of signals from an array of sensory organs to facilitate appropriate responses to the world around us. Normal, healthy aging has been associated with a decline in our ability to do this effectively. This is especially true when the task is complex and/or the signals are conflicting, implying that cognitive control may play a role. However, multisensory aging studies rarely make direct comparisons with unisensory tasks, and past research into age-related changes in cognitive control has focused heavily on unisensory stimuli. It is therefore unclear whether previously reported age differences are specific to multisensory perception or instead result from general impairments to cognitive control. The present study aimed to compare the effects of aging on cognitive control in unisensory versus multisensory contexts. Younger (n = 53; 18-30 years) and older (n = 61; 65-88 years) adults completed visual and audiovisual Stroop tasks, with and without trial-by-trial task switching to manipulate cognitive control demands. No age-related decline in performance was found in any unisensory condition. The groups also responded similarly to multisensory stimuli in the absence of task switching. However, older adults performed markedly worse during multisensory task switching, particularly in response to incongruent stimuli. Our findings clearly demonstrate that circumstances exist under which older adults exhibit deficits specific to multisensory processing and that these age differences are influenced by changes in cognitive control. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Older adults' retrieval of autobiographical memories is more gist-like than young adults' retrieval, meaning they tend to recall the general essence of a past experience while omitting some more specific (e.g., sensory) episodic details. This reduced specificity in autobiographical memory retrieval is attributed to a diminished ability to access episodic details, reflecting broader age-related changes in memory function. Such episodic deficits also impact memory monitoring, a key aspect of metacognition, the ability to evaluate and regulate one's own cognitive processes. While episodic memory monitoring difficulties in aging are well-documented and often attributed to declines in episodic memory, some results demonstrate the lack of that effect. Moreover, it remains unclear and underexplored whether age-related changes in episodic memory for real-world materials, such as autobiographical memory recall, translate into corresponding impairments in metacognitive monitoring. This study addresses this gap by examining metacognitive abilities related to autobiographical memory retrieval in aging. Young (N = 49, age range = 18-25) and older adults (N = 50, age range = 60-77) completed the Feeling of Retrieval task, for which they had a limited time (i.e., 2 s) to carry out feelings of fluency judgments. Specifically, they judged whether a cue would allow fluent access to their autobiographical memory or would limit it. They were then instructed to recall autobiographical memories in response to both types of cues. We found that older adults were as accurate as young adults in distinguishing the likelihood of the two types of cues to facilitate autobiographical memory retrieval, suggesting that metacognitive abilities related to autobiographical memory retrieval remain preserved in aging. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
To date, few studies have explored the role of older adults' self-perceptions of aging (SPA) in the context of volunteering and how SPA might shape or be shaped by volunteering. Using random-intercept cross-lagged panel models and data from the German Ageing Survey, this study examined the bidirectional associations between different gain- and loss-related facets of older adults' SPA (i.e., perceptions of physical losses, social losses, and ongoing development) and their engagement in volunteering over a 9-year period. Gender differences in these associations were also examined. The study sample comprised 4,512 older adults (ages 65-93 years at baseline). At the between-person level, individuals with overall higher scores on SPA of social losses reported overall fewer hours of volunteering per week, whereas participants' scores on the other two SPA scales were not significantly associated with volunteering at the between-person level. With regard to within-person cross-lagged associations, paths from prior volunteering to subsequent SPA were statistically nonsignificant. However, higher than one's average SPA of physical losses was associated with less volunteering than one's average at the subsequent measurement occasion, whereas scoring higher than one's average SPA of ongoing development showed the opposite association with volunteering at subsequent occasions. Findings also revealed gender differences in the associations between SPA of social losses and volunteering. In summary, the findings of this study showed that different dimensions of older adults' SPA are differentially associated with their volunteering over time and that it may be important to take a gender-specific perspective on volunteering. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Emerging findings suggest that older adults rely more on gist-based representations of an event's general meaning than on verbatim representations of surface details during decision making. This tendency is often attributed to age-related cognitive changes and accumulated life experience. However, the extent to which older adults rely on gist representations for pragmatic decision making based on linguistic information remains unclear. To address this gap, we used a recognition probe task to compare how older and younger adults' gist representations of general meaning influence pragmatic comprehension when interpreting implicit speech acts (ISAs), in which intentions are conveyed without an explicit performative verb. The task elicited automatic recognition of intentions from ISAs and involved conversations ending with a target remark conveying an ISA, such as "I couldn't have done it without you," followed by a probe word capturing the implied intention, for example, "thank." Participants judged whether the probe word had literally occurred in the final remark. We hypothesized that if participants automatically accessed the implied intention of ISAs, this gist activation would interfere with verbatim-based probe judgments, resulting in longer reaction times relative to a non-ISA control condition. The results from 34 younger (M = 21.8 years) and 34 older (M = 72.3 years) native Japanese speakers showed that older participants exhibited significantly longer reaction times in the ISA condition than in the control condition, whereas younger participants did not. These findings suggest that older adults demonstrate an advantage in gist-based processing, which may facilitate the interpretation of implicit pragmatic intentions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Exposure to more alternatives in multiple-choice (MC) questions tends to harm new learning in younger adults (YAs; Roediger & Marsh, 2005). Cognitive aging theories make opposing predictions about whether MC tests would benefit or harm immediate and subsequent memory in older adults (OAs). Compared to YAs, OAs have more extensive knowledge bases, access to which could be disproportionately bolstered through activation of related knowledge or harmed due to difficulties inhibiting competition by increasing alternatives. Here, OAs and YAs answered age-normed general knowledge MC questions with two, four, or six alternatives. After 6 min or 1 week, participants completed a short-answer test with the same questions. For both age groups, accuracy decreased as lure number increased on the MC test. When participants answered correctly on the MC test, accuracy on the short-answer test 6 min later increased after exposure to more alternatives, but after initial errors, accuracy decreased with more alternatives. After a week, MC alternative number no longer impacted short-answer performance. Notably, the effects of alternative manipulations appear to be age-invariant and relatively short-lived in the context of general knowledge retrieval. Unlike in many other memory tasks, OAs performed largely the same as YAs. When the answer was accessible, OAs' later memory for general knowledge benefitted just as much as YAs' from seeing more alternatives. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
This study examined age-related differences in real-world wayfinding, with a focus on gait behavior and its role in spatial orientation. Twenty-six younger adults (age 23.6 ± 2.2) and 25 older adults (OA; age 70.5 ± 4.3) completed a naturalistic navigation task involving route learning, route retracing, and in-lab spatial memory tasks. Although OA made more spatial errors during wayfinding, they exhibited faster gait speeds than younger adults, a finding that contrasts with prior virtual environment or lab-based studies. Gait analysis revealed age-specific strategies: Younger adults maintained consistent walk ratios, suggesting cognitive prioritization, while OA showed more frequent stop-and-go behavior, suggesting greater reliance on pausing as an orienting strategy during navigation. Notably, stop-and-go frequency significantly correlated with wayfinding performance in both virtual environment and real-world conditions, indicating a potential compensatory mechanism to recalibrate internal spatial representations through intermittent pausing. These findings suggest that gait may play a more active role in navigation than previously recognized. Studying wayfinding in real environments, where gait, sensory cues, and cognitive load interact naturally, offers new insight into age-related navigational adaptation. The results underscore the value of ecological validity in understanding the motor-cognitive interplay that supports environmental memory formation across the lifespan. This research provides a foundation for developing dual task training and gait-informed interventions aimed at supporting mobility, orientation, and autonomy in OA. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Cognitive flexibility is the ability to shift between mental sets in response to changing goals or environments, and it is known to decline across the adult lifespan. Competing accounts attribute this decline either to weaknesses in specific abilities such as inhibition or memory, or to more global challenges in managing the interaction between them. Efforts to disentangle contributing processes through targeted, single-function tasks have produced mixed findings, potentially due to confounding variability in stimuli and task demands.The current work contributes to the field's understanding of cognitive flexibility decline by focusing on \emph{inhibition} as both a subcomponent and as an independent process, given its central role in both specific-deficit and integrative theoretical accounts. In particular, we designed a unified task that engages both 1) cognitive flexibility through shifting requirements to encode task-relevant mental sets and inhibit them once they become outdated; and 2) discrete item-level inhibition of perceptual distractors. We tested 86 adults aged 18–73. Accuracy analyses revealed asymmetric interaction effects between aging and these two operations: while learning after a rule-switch worsened as age increased, inhibition of perceptual distractors inhibition improved. We then applied a computational model to quantify how memory precision and the inhibition of previously-relevant sets each contributed to performance. Model fits indicated that age-related decline in learning across rule-switches were driven primarily by reduced memory precision, not by deficits in inhibition.
Rapid online control (ROC) enables in-flight movement adjustments when targets shift unexpectedly and is critical for everyday function and safety, particularly in aging. Laboratory studies have reported mixed findings on age-related changes in ROC, with some attributing differences to general motor slowing. A recent lab-based study (Wang et al., 2025) demonstrated that older adults' prolonged correction latencies could not be fully explained by slowing and were linked to motor imagery ability. The present study replicated and extended these findings in a larger, continuous adult lifespan sample (N = 241; ages 20-79) using an online double-step reaching paradigm with mouse-cursor tracking. Linear mixed-effects models revealed robust age-related declines in ROC, characterized by longer correction latencies and more rigid corrective movements, even after accounting for device variability and general slowing. Participants increasingly relied on a speed-accuracy trade-off strategy with age, extending movement durations to preserve endpoint accuracy. While older adults' correction latency was linked to their motor imagery efficiency, unlike the previous lab study, the endpoint accuracy was not associated with motor imagery but primarily dependent on the kinematic feature of correction deviation. Moreover, response inhibition, measured by the stop-signal task, emerged as a robust predictor of correction efficiency across the lifespan. These findings confirm age-related declines in ROC under more heterogeneous, real-world conditions and show mouse-cursor tracking as a viable method for large-scale, online studies of motor control across the adult lifespan. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
