Two separate, large cohorts reveal potential modifiers of age-associated variation in visual reaction time performance

Our study’s results illuminate a portion of the intricate relationship between age and RT performance by identifying demographic, health, medical, and lifestyle factors associated with either attenuation or exacerbation of RT lengthening from younger to older ages (see Fig. 9 for an illustrative summary of the results). A large body of work on RT, leading back to Sir Francis Galton in 1890³⁶, has consistently demonstrated an age-associated shift in RT³⁷. It is not surprising that MindCrowd, UKBb MindCrowd, and UK Biobank models revealed slowing of simple visual (svRT, MindCrowd) and complex visual recognition RT (cvrRT, UK Biobank) from younger to older ages. Likewise, the MindCrowd model found that the relationship between svRT and age was modestly curvilinear (Fig. 1a). While this curvilinear relation between RT and age has been noted previously³⁸, both cohorts’ large sample…