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. 2024 Mar 18:15:1323798.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1323798. eCollection 2024.

Age-related changes in motor planning for prior intentions: a mouse tracking reach-to-click task

Shujing Zhang  1   2 , Kate Wilmut  3 , Kaiyu Zhang  4 , Shan Wang  1   2   3   5
Affiliations

Age-related changes in motor planning for prior intentions: a mouse tracking reach-to-click task

Shujing Zhang et al. Front Psychol. .

Abstract

When we complete sequential movements with different intentions, we plan our movements and adjust ahead. Such a phenomenon is called anticipatory planning for prior intentions and is known to decline with age. In daily life activities, we often need to consider and plan for multiple demands in one movement sequence. However, previous studies only considered one dimension of prior intentions, either different types of onward actions or different precisions of fit or placement. Therefore, in this study, we investigated anticipatory planning for both extrinsic (movement direction) and intrinsic (fit precision) target-related properties in a computer-based movement task and analyzed the computer cursor movement kinematics of both young and older adults. We found that older people consider and adjust for different properties step-by-step, with movement direction being considered as a prior intention during reach movement and fit precision as a motor constraint during drop movement. The age-related changes in the completion of onward actions are constrained by one's general cognitive ability, sensorimotor performance and effective motor planning for prior intentions. Age-related decline in motor planning can manifest as counterproductive movement profiles, resulting in suboptimal performance of intended actions.

Keywords: aging; computer mouse cursor tracking; kinematic analysis; motor planning; prior intention.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. The author(s) declared that they were an editorial board member of Frontiers, at the time of submission. This had no impact on the peer review process and the final decision.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Mouse tracking task procedure using left side tight fit as an example: (A) Holding down the mouse key on the home button for a random interval between 500 and 1,500 ms. (B). Once the holding time elapsed, the central disk blinks once with a brief audio tone played for 300 ms simultaneously to notify the participant to start. (C) The participant moving the cursor from the home button toward the central disk and click on it (reach phase). (D) Dragging the central disk toward the target circle and drop it (drop phase).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Sample cursor trajectory for a left-side medium-size drop. The red trajectory line shows reach movement and the blue trajectory line shows the drop movement.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Sample velocity and acceleration profile with several key kinematic measures: (a) time to peak acceleration during reach movement, (b) deceleration time during reach movement, (c) adjustment time before finishing the drop movement.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Interaction between age group and target side on reach movement time to peak acceleration (%).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Interaction among age group, target side and fit on the reach movement deceleration period (%).
Figure 6
Figure 6
Interaction among age group, target side and fit on the drop adjustment time (%).
Figure 7
Figure 7
Association between deceleration period difference between left and right side (%) and the average drop adjustment time (%) plotted for older and young participants.
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