Sight, hearing and movement jointly linked to thinking

Combined sensory and motor performance was associated with all five areas. Processing speed—how quickly people handled information—was linked to combined performance in early midlife, late midlife and older adulthood. It was not associated with any individual function after accounting for the others in the primary analyses. Formal comparisons did not establish differences in association strength between age groups. Adding sensory and motor measures to age and sex improved predictions tested on held-out data for four areas of thinking, most for executive function—skills for managing thoughts and actions.