Prediction and anticipation help to compensate age related deterioration in tracking of moving objects

Externally guided sensory-motor processes deteriorate with increasing age. Internally guided, for example, predictive, behaviour usually helps to overcome sensory-motor delays. We studied whether predictive components of visuomotor transformation decline with age. We investigated smooth pursuit eye movements (SPEM) of 45 healthy subjects with paradigms of different degrees of predictability with respect to target motion onset, type (smoothed triangular, ramp stimulation), and direction by blanking the target at various intervals of the ramp stimulation. Using repetitive trials of SPEM stimulation, we were able t…