Clegg, B. A., Wood, J. A., & Bugg, J. M. (2004). Real and imagined movements in older and younger adults. Journal of Mental Imagery, 28(1&2), 1-16.
Older and younger adults completed tapping tasks using real and imagined movements. Two types of tasks were utilized, repetitive movements to a single target and sequential movements around a series of targets. For repetitive movements real and imagined performance was similar, however for the sequential task older adults showed greater changes with increasing difficulty for real movements but not for imagined movements. Older adults showed a general slowing on all tasks compared to younger adults, but the results suggest some age-related changes relate specifically to the execution of a discrete series of movements.