Open Access

Nina Düvel, Patricia Trzciński, Reinhard Kopiez

• The general performance of the human cognitive–motor system tends to deteriorate from the fifth decade onward, resulting in a decline in both accuracy and speed. Nevertheless, many professional musicians continue to perform at the highest level at older ages. Although lifespan psychology and its assumption of coping strategies for handling age-related losses in cognitive–motor performance seem plausible, there is no empirical evidence for the successful application of this strategy to date. Using a within-subjects design, we investigated whether the recordings of professional musicians from earlier (before age 40) and later years (after age 65) can be allocated to the respective age segment by listening. Six pairs of early and late recordings of the same piece by the same performer were identified (instruments: piano, violin, saxophone, trombone; all five musicians aged healthily). In an online experiment, the discrimination sensitivity of N = 200 valid participants for early vs. late career phases was measured using the replicated paired A-Not A design from signal detection theory. The resulting mean sensitivity was d‘ = 0.01 (95% CI [−0.09, 0.12]), which indicates a performance at chance level. We conclude that the recordings contained no reliable cues for decreasing performance skills in older musicians and therefore suggest successful compensation for age-related deficits. For the first time, we found empirical perceptual evidence that for some musicians and pieces, early and late recordings could not be distinguished by listening in a blind test. The coping strategies for the handling of age-related losses may point to some underlying reasons for the high-level performance in old age.