It may be hard to take, but Canadian scientists say if you're more than 24 years old you've reached the peak of cognitive motor performance and an age-related decline has already begun.

In a social science experiment using big data, researchers at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia analyzed the performance levels of around 3,300 players of the computer game StarCraft 2.

The players in the computerized game of intergalactic war were aged 16 to 44.

Their readily replayable performance records constitute a source of big data since they contain many hours of cognitive-based actions in the real-time strategy game performed by players of various ages and different skill levels, the researchers say.

The way in which players responded to the actions of their opponents and even more significantly how quickly they were able to react could be distilled from the huge amount of data using complex computer modeling and statistical modeling, they said.

What they found was a younger peak age than many people might expect.

"After around 24 years of age, players show slowing in a measure of cognitive speed that is known to be important for performance," researcher Joe Thompson says.

"This cognitive performance decline is present even at higher levels of skill," says Thompson, the lead author of a study he conducted as part of his psychology doctoral thesis.

Still, he says, there may be a bright spot in this decline that comes as we age.

"Older players, though slower, seem to compensate by employing simpler strategies and using the game's interface more efficiently than younger players, enabling them to retain their skill, despite cognitive motor-speed loss," Thompson says.

Older players were found to be compensating by using short cuts such as advanced command key combinations to overcome the problem of declining speed in making decisions in real time, he says.

It suggests, he says, "that our cognitive-motor capacities are not stable across our adulthood, but are constantly in flux, and that our day-to-day performance is a result of the constant interplay between change and adaptation."

In other words, he says, "older but wiser" could be a factor in play.

"Our research tells a new story about human development," Thompson says.

The findings may not lead to understanding the full effect increasing computer-based distractions might have on our adaptive behaviors that we use to make up for a loss of cognitive motor ability. However, a growing body of available data being created by the digitized world will feed social science research like his for decades to come, he says.

The study was published in the journal PLOS ONE.