Metronome pacing and age: the effect of irrelevant stimuli.

Community resident and institutionalized elderly were compared with young subjects in their ability to ignore task-irrelevant stimuli in a time estimation task. Production and reproduction estimates were compared under three metronome conditions: no metronome, 40 beats per minute (bpm), and 80 bpm. The no-metronome estimates of both old groups were significantly shorter and more accurate than those of the young subjects; estimates were more accurate with the reproduction than with the production method. A significant "metronome driving" effect was seen in the estimates of the two old groups, especially the institutionalized one. The results are consistent with an increase in perceptual noise with age and also suggest that the social conformity of older persons and their susceptibility to irrelevant stimuli can be represented as an increase in field dependence with age.