Journal
JOURNAL OF AGING AND PHYSICAL ACTIVITY
Volume 22, Issue 4, Pages 557-563Publisher
HUMAN KINETICS PUBL INC
DOI: 10.1123/JAPA.2012-0241
Keywords
switch task; cognition; dual-task interference; physical activity; information processing
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Funding
- Regional Council of Poitou-Charentes (France)
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Thirty-one young (mean age = 20.8 years) and 30 older (mean age = 71.5 years) men and women categorized as physically active (n = 30) or inactive (n = 31) performed an executive processing task while standing, treadmill walking at a preferred pace, and treadmill walking at a faster pace. Dual-task interference was predicted to negatively impact older adults' cognitive flexibility as measured by an auditory switch task more than younger adults; further, participants' level of physical activity was predicted to mitigate the relation. For older adults, treadmill walking was accompanied by significantly more rapid response times and reductions in local- and mixed-switch costs. A speed-accuracy tradeoff was observed in which response errors increased linearly as walking speed increased, suggesting that locomotion under dual-task conditions degrades the quality of older adults' cognitive flexibility. Participants' level of physical activity did not influence cognitive test performance.
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