Table 2 Participant demographics, and sleep and vigilance scores for each age group in Experiment 2

From: Children exhibit a developmental advantage in the offline processing of a learned motor sequence

Variable

 

Children

Adolescents

Young adults

Older adults

p-value

n

 

27

27

27

27

/

Female (n)

 

16

12

21

18

0.08

Age (years)

 

10.6 (1.6)

15.4 (1.4)

26.6 (4.4)

63.0 (4.4)

/

M/E Preference

 

3.0 (0.8)

3.2 (0.9)

3.2 (0.8)

2.4 (0.9)

0.002*

Session 1

Time of testing

11:34 (97)

11:34 (96)

11:39 (82)

11:30 (92)

0.99

Sleep quality

4.9 (0.7)

5.1 (0.6)

5.0 (0.6)

4.7 (0.8)

0.19

Sleep duration (hrs.)

9.7 (1.1)

9.4 (1.2)

8.3 (1.1)

7.7 (1.3)

<0.001*

SSS score

2.2 (0.9)

2.1 (0.8)

2.0 (0.7)

1.5 (0.7)

0.012*

PVT score (ms)

360.9 (81.5)

341.9 (102.3)

320.9 (62.0)

327.5 (75.7)

0.31

Session 2

Time of testing

16:42 (99)

16:56 (112)

16:43 (89)

16:29 (96)

0.81

Offline period (hrs.)

5.1 (0.8)

5.4 (0.9)

5.1 (1.1)

5.0 (0.7)

0.43

SSS score

2.0 (1.0)

1.8 (0.8)

2.0 (0.7)

1.7 (0.7)

0.36

PVT score (ms)

386.0 (88.4)

318.5 (61.0)

320.3 (69.1)

323.6 (68.0)

0.002*

Session 3

Time of testing

11:57 (148)

12:25 (156)

11:30 (97)

11:24 (109)

0.31

Offline period (hrs.)

24.4 (1.8)

24.8 (1.9)

23.8 (1.4)

23.9 (1.4)

0.095

Sleep quality

5.0 (0.8)

4.7 (0.8)

4.7 (0.7)

4.6 (0.7)

0.38

Sleep duration (hrs.)

10.3 (0.9)

9.3 (1.5)

8.0 (1.3)

7.6 (1.0)

<0.001*

SSS score

1.9 (0.7)

2.3 (1.3)

2.3 (0.8)

1.5 (0.6)

0.003*

PVT score (ms)

378.7 (97.3)

325.8 (74.6)

308.0 (54.4)

306.3 (33.6)

<0.001*

  1. Numbers represent the mean, with standard deviation in parentheses. Gender was determined by asking what gender the participant identified with the most. No participant reported to be non-binary. Morningness/Eveningness (M/E) Preference was added as an exploratory variable to assess age-related differences in circadian preferences and is defined on a 5-point Likert scale (i.e., 1 = extreme morning person, 5 = extreme evening person). The average time of testing is specified in 24-h time notation, with the SD in minutes. The offline periods represent the time periods between session 1 and sessions 2 and 3, respectively. Sleep quality is defined on a 6-point Likert scale (i.e., 1 = very bad, 6 = very good). SSS = Stanford Sleepiness Scale33, with higher numbers indicative of increased sleepiness. The PVT score indicates the average simple RT across the 30 trials. The p-values resulted from one-way ANOVAs assessing group differences. See Supplementary Discussion 1 for full statistical information.
Back to article page