The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of age on visuomotor tracking using submental and anterior neck surface electromyography (sEMG) to assess feasibility of computer control via neck musculature, which allows people with little remaining motor function to interact with computers. Thirty-two healthy adults participated: sixteen younger adults aged 18 - 29 years and sixteen older adults aged 69 - 85 years. Participants modulated sEMG to achieve targets presented at different amplitudes using real-time visual feedback. Root-mean-squared (RMS) error was used to quantify tracking performance. RMS error was increased for older adults relative to younger adults. Older adults demonstrated more RMS error than younger adults as a function of increasing target amplitude. The differential effects of age found on static tracking performance in anterior neck musculature suggest more difficult translation of human-computer-interfaces controlled using anterior neck musculature for static tasks to older populations.

中文翻译：

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年龄对通过颈部肌电图控制人机界面的影响。

这项研究的目的是使用脑下和前颈表面肌电图（sEMG）来确定年龄对视觉运动追踪的影响，以评估通过颈部肌肉组织进行计算机控制的可行性，该功能允许几乎没有运动功能的人与计算机进行交互。有32名健康成年人参加：16名年龄在18-29岁的年轻人和16名年龄在69-85岁的成年人。参与者使用实时视觉反馈调制sEMG以实现以不同幅度呈现的目标。均方根（RMS）误差用于量化跟踪性能。相对于年轻人，老年人的RMS误差增加。与目标成年人相比，老年人表现出的R​​MS误差比年轻人更大。