Rotary pursuit performance as related to sex and age of pre-adult subjects.

Abstract

This experiment was conducted to determine the relationship for pre-adult male and female Ss between age and various aspects of acquisition and performance of a simple motor skill. The Ss were 350 children, 35 boys and 35 girls each in Grades 3, 6, 9, 11, and 12. Three minutes of continuous practice on the pursuit rotor were followed by a 5-min. rest, then a further 8 min. of continuous practice. It was found that: (a) there was a marked over-all increase in proficiency accompanying increase in age, with boys showing an increasing superiority over girls; (b) the proficiency of the girls declined from Grade 9 to Grade 12; (c) temporary work decrement (reactive inhibition) and warm-up decrement generally increased in amount with increasing age, and boys showed more than girls; and (d) temporary work decrement and warm-up decrement were roughly proportional in amount to level of proficiency, with temporary work decrement present at all levels, while warm-up decrement did not appear until a certain minimum level of proficiency was reached. It was concluded that: (1) the results can best be accounted for in terms of a transfer theory of acquisition and decrement, which theory was outlined; (b) for most purposes Ss of both sexes and a wide age range can be used to study the phenomena of acquisition and decrement in rotary pursuit, even though there are marked quantitative differences in performance among the groups.