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Date of Award

2025

Document Type

Campus Access Master's Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Applied Cognitive Science and Human Factors (MS)

Administrative Home Department

Department of Psychology and Human Factors

Advisor 1

Kevin Trewartha

Committee Member 1

Karen Li

Committee Member 2

Jason Harman

Abstract

Older adults often exhibit declines in executive control and rapid motor decision-making, which can impact everyday tasks such as driving or cooking. This study examined agerelated differences in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) activation during two motor decision-making tasks using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Twenty-nine younger and twenty-seven older adults completed the Object Hit (OH) and Object Hit & Avoid (OHA) tasks in the Kinarm End-Point system, which assessed perceptual-motor speed, coordination, and executive control. Results indicated that older adults exhibited significantly lower processing rates, reduced accuracy, and increased spatial errors. These deficits remained after adjusting for psychomotor speed. fNIRS results showed greater bilateral dlPFC activation in older adults across both tasks, aligning with compensatory models such as CRUNCH and STAC-r. These findings suggest that older adults recruit additional cognitive resources to maintain performance and emphasize the use of fNIRS to understand age-related changes in cognitive and motor integration.

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