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AGE AND BEHAVIOR: SLOW RESPONSE TO ENVIRONMENTAL STIMULATION

It was seen how the environment becomes functionally altered when aging causes the sensory and perceptual processing of information to change. As change occurs, differences in response are noted, but, as investigated in the laboratory at least, the differences are more quantitative than qualitative. Among the more frequently investigated quantitative behavioral differences is the slowing down of the responses of older people. It is difficult to separate this slowing of response from changes in perceptual abilities that also occur in later life, because both are assessed from the same type of information. For example, response is slower when the intensity of stimulation is lower, but one measure of the ability to perceive the stimulus is the time it takes to recognize it. The tie between perception and response speed is so close that the previous chapter, dealing with perceptual processing of information, was introduced with a brief discussion of a four-choice reaction time task. Conversely, in introducing the topic of speed of response, Birren (1964) wrote: "One difference in the perceptual performance of older and younger subjects... is that of speed" of response. For some it might seem that the study of speed of response in later life is a trivial pursuit; not so, however, for many psychologists studying aging. It is thought so important, in fact, that Birren (1964) concluded, "the evidence indicates that all behavior mediated by the central nervous system tends to slow in the aging organism. ... In the view favored here, slowness of behavior is the perceptual manifestation of a primary process of aging in the nervous system." This view, in varying forms, is examined in this chapter with evidence which supports it and evidence which does not. An extensive analysis of the problem, but with a different focus, may be seen in a comprehensive chapter by Welford (1977). *214\220\8*