Age Differences in Simple and Procedural Reaction Time Among Healthy Military Personnel

Abstract

Knowledge of cognitive processing changes among adults is important as it can impact their work and home functioning. However, basic cognitive changes due to aging among healthy working adults are either not as well documented or focus on adults over 60 years of age. The purpose of this study was to examine the performance of younger (age 21-38) and older (age 39-58) military personnel on the Automated Neuropsychological Assessment Metric (ANAM) tests of simple and procedural reaction time. Descriptive statistics including correlation analyses were used to examine the data. Independent samples t-tests were used to compare the groups. Linear regression was used to predict age based on the three reaction time tests. Results of the correlation analyses failed to find a significant relationship between age and reaction time (p > .05). Results of the t-tests failed to find significant mean differences between younger and older participants (p > .05). Results of the linear regression analyses failed to find significance for predicting age based on the selected reaction time measures (p > .05). These results appear to support findings that age-related differences in reaction time do not occur during less complex reaction time tasks.