Abstract
The present study investigated whether the motor functions of older adults affect the range of peripersonal space, defined as the space where visuotactile interactions occur in the visuotactile crossmodal congruency task. Participants discriminated the location of vibrotactile target stimuli presented to either the left or right hand while they tried to ignore visual distractors that could independently be presented at several distances away from the tactile stimuli on either the same or the opposite side. Only the visual distractors located adjacent to the hands influenced tactile judgments for younger adults and the older adults who showed good motor performance (Timed Up & Go Test). In contrast, even the visual distractors located more than 30 cm away from the hands affected the judgments for the older adults who showed poor motor performance. These findings suggest a close link between motor functions and the representation of peripersonal space in older adults.
