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Predicting Cognitive Status of Older Adults by Using Directional Accuracy in Explicit Timing Tasks

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Abstract

The early effects of age-related cognitive decline on explicit timing have been widely reported. However, it is not clear to what extent measures from the internal clock and working memory are predictive of cognitive function in older adults. During this study, we examined three target intervals (i.e., 2, 6, 10 s) using Production and Reproduction tasks to assess the performance measures representative of the functioning of an internal clock and working memory, respectively. Participants were 36 older adults (19 females) with mean age of 68.4 ± 5.1 year and mean Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) scores of 27.9 ± 2.0. During the Reproduction task, the participants were asked to reproduce the duration of a previously seen stimulus generated by a virtual reality program, whereas in the Production task the participants had to produce a target interval explicitly requested by the program. Each task consisted of nine trials with three repetitions of each target interval in a pseudo-random sequence. The average relative signed error for each target interval was calculated based on the participants’ estimations. The six calculated signed errors, as well as the participant’s age and gender were used as predictors for a linear regression model to determine the best predictors for the participants’ MoCA scores using a backward method. The final regression model was found to be significant (F(2, 33) = 5.06, p < .01, R2 = 0.24) using only the two predictors of 6- and 10-s reproduction intervals. Our results show that measures of working memory provide a more reliable account of the variation of older adults’ cognitive scores compared to age and the measures of the internal clock.

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Acknowledgements

Funding was provided by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (Grant No. 950-229260).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Biomedical Engineering Program, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, R3T 5V6, Canada

    Omid Ranjbar Pouya & Zahra Moussavi

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, R3T 2N2, Canada

    Debbie M. Kelly

  3. Riverview Health Center, Winnipeg, MB, R3L 2P4, Canada

    Zahra Moussavi

Authors
  1. Omid Ranjbar Pouya
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  2. Debbie M. Kelly
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  3. Zahra Moussavi
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Correspondence to Omid Ranjbar Pouya.

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Ranjbar Pouya, O., Kelly, D.M. & Moussavi, Z. Predicting Cognitive Status of Older Adults by Using Directional Accuracy in Explicit Timing Tasks. J. Med. Biol. Eng. 39, 418–423 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40846-018-0417-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40846-018-0417-7

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