Psychological Aspects of Ageing 213 



of skilled response, within fairly wide age ranges. One charae- 

 teristic of behaviour in the middle age ranges and upwards 

 is an unusual persistence of mistakes. If a mistake has been 

 made once or twice there seems to be a strong tendency for 

 the performer to move to the required response by way of 

 the imwanted one, even when it is perfectly clear that the 

 latter is unwanted (Kay, 1951). This is just what would be 

 expected if the course of an action is determined at a relatively 

 early stage of the action. 



Supposing that there were both some retraction of antici- 

 pation range, and some advance of the "point of no return'' 

 all the slowing-up of skilled work which has been experiment- 

 ally demonstrated would be fully accounted for. Whether 

 they do occur and if so by what human mechanisms they are 

 effected are questions perfectly amenable to an experimental 

 approach; but the experiments have not yet been done. 



One final question about these results of which I have 

 spoken and a good many others, both in practice and in 

 training, which I might have discussed had there been time: 

 are they inevitable? That depends upon the meaning which 

 is attached to "inevitability". If "inevitable" means results 

 that will occur unless special precautions are taken, they are. 

 If "inevitable" means results that are bound to occur what- 

 ever is done about them, simply because everybody advances 

 in age, the strong probability is that they are not. But that 

 opens up another, and perhaps a still wider, field for 

 experimental study. 



REFERENCES 



Kay, H. a. (1951). Quart. J. exp. Psychol., 3, 1G(3. 

 Leonard, J. A. (1953). Quart. J. exp. Psychol., 5, 141. 

 SzAFRAN, J. (1951). Quart. J. exp. PsythoL, 3, 111. 

 Welford, a. T. (1951). Skill and Age. Oxford University Press for the 

 Nuffield Foundation, p. 26. 



DISCUSSION 



Shock: In investigating problems of this kind, can one deal with a 

 wide variety of skills, or is it necessary to confine the tc.its to fairly 

 definite acts? In other words, how broad an experience can one dea' 

 \Wth experimentally in this kind of approach? 



