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Collision avoidance behavior as a function of aging and tennis playing

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Abstract

Daily living often requires pedestrians and drivers to adapt their behavior to the displacement of other objects in their environment in order to avoid collision. Yet little research has paid attention to the effect of age on the completion of such a challenging task. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between age and collision avoidance skill and whether a sporting activity affects this. Three age groups (20–30, 60–70, and 70–80 years) of tennis players and non-players launched a projectile toward a target in order to hit it before it was hit by another “object” (a stimulus represented by apparent motion of lights). If the participant judged that time-to-collision (TTC) of the moving stimulus was not long enough for him/her to launch the projectile in time to arrive before the stimulus, the participant had to inhibit the launching. Results showed that for the non-players the number of errors in the 70–80 year-old group was significantly higher than those of the 20–30 and 60–70 year-old groups, which did not differ from each other. However, this increase was not observed in the 70-80 year-old tennis players, demonstrating a beneficial effect of playing tennis on collision avoidance skill. Results also revealed that the older groups of both tennis players and non-players were subject to the typical age-related increase in response time. Additional analyses indicated that the 70–80 year-old non-players did not adjust their actions to these age-related changes in response time. The older tennis-playing participants, however, were more likely to adjust collision avoidance behavior to their diminished response times.

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Notes

  1. Standard deviations (SD) of TT, DT and LT were also calculated and submitted to an age3 × tennis playing2 ANOVA. The analysis on SD TT yielded no significant effect or interaction. The analysis on SD DT yielded a main effect of age, F(2,42) = 4.31, P < 0.05, η 2 = 0.17, and tennis playing, F(1,42) = 10.18, P < 0.01, η 2 = 0.20, and an interaction between these two factors, F(2,42) = 3.91, P < 0.05, η 2 = 0.16. A post hoc test on this interaction yielded significant differences between the 70–80 year-old non-player group and the other groups. The analysis on SD LT yielded a main effect of age, F(2,42) = 8.71, P < 0.001, η 2 = 0.29, due to a more variable LT for the 70–80 year-olds than for the other two groups, as well as a main effect of tennis playing, F(1,42) = 9.83, P < 0.01, η 2 = 0.19, the non-players having a more variable LT than the players. SDs are given for each group in Table 1.

  2. To examine participants’ abilities to adjust behavior to the available time, the relationships between response times (TT, DT and LT) and TTC were assessed. To this end, the individual linear relationships of individual TT, DT and LT as a function of TTC were calculated for each participant separately. Fisher Z-transformations of the correlation coefficients (r), slopes, and intercepts of the individual linear regressions were analysed. Analyses of the TT/TTC relationships revealed age differences on Fisher Z-scores, F(2,42) = 4.87, P < 0.05, η 2 = 0.19, which were higher for the young group than for the older groups, and on the intercept, F(2,42) = 9.04, P < 0.001, η 2 = 0.30; which was lower for the young group than for the older groups. Analyses of the DT/TTC relationships did not reveal significant effects or interactions. Analyses of the LT/TTC relationships yielded age differences on the Z-scores, F(2,42) = 3.52, P < 0.05, η 2 = 0.14, which were higher for the young group than for the older groups, and on the intercept, F(2,42) = 5.31, P < 0.01, η 2 = 0.20, which was higher for the 70–80 year-olds than for the both other groups. The low slopes and Z scores of the relationship between TTC and response times, and the lack of differences between ages or tennis-playing groups suggests that the behavioral adjustment to TTC was minimal, indicating that the participants, whatever their age and tennis-playing group, were likely to use a constant response-time strategy to perform the task (Table 1).

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a grant from the French Ministry for Research and Education to Régis Lobjois while he was with the Center for Research in Sport Sciences, Faculty of Sport Sciences, University of Paris-Sud, Orsay, France.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Modeling, simulation and driving simulators, French National Institute for Transport and Safety Research, Arcueil, France

    Régis Lobjois

  2. Motor Control and Perception Laboratory, University of Paris-Sud, Orsay, France

    Nicolas Benguigui

  3. Center for Research in Sport Sciences, University of Paris-Sud, Orsay, France

    Jean Bertsch

  4. Naval Health Research Center, San Diego, CA, USA

    Michael P. Broderick

  5. Institut National de Recherche sur les Transports et leur Sécurité, Laboratoire de Psychologie de la Conduite, 2, Avenue du Général Malleret-Joinville, 94114, Arcueil, France

    Régis Lobjois

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  1. Régis Lobjois
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  2. Nicolas Benguigui
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  3. Jean Bertsch
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  4. Michael P. Broderick
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Correspondence to Régis Lobjois.

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Lobjois, R., Benguigui, N., Bertsch, J. et al. Collision avoidance behavior as a function of aging and tennis playing. Exp Brain Res 184, 457–468 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-007-1117-7

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