Aging and the discrimination of 3-D shape from motion and binocular disparity

Two experiments evaluated the ability of younger and older adults to visually discriminate 3-D shape as a function of surface coherence. The coherence was manipulated by embedding the 3-D surfaces in volumetric noise (e.g., for a 55 % coherent surface, 55 % of the stimulus points fell on a 3-D surfa...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Attention, perception & psychophysics perception & psychophysics, 2012-10, Vol.74 (7), p.1512-1521
Main Authors: Norman, J. Farley, Holmin, Jessica S., Beers, Amanda M., Cheeseman, Jacob R., Ronning, Cecilia, Stethen, Angela G., Frost, Adam L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Age
Aged
Aging
Aging (Individuals)
Aging - psychology
Algorithms
Attention
Behavioral Science and Psychology
Biological and medical sciences
Cognitive Psychology
Depth Perception
Discrimination
Discrimination (Psychology)
Discrimination Learning
Experiments
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Male
Middle Aged
Motion
Motion Perception
Noise
Older people
Orientation
Pattern Recognition, Visual
Perception
Psychology
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Reference Values
Surface Properties
Vision
Vision Disparity
Young Adult
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Summary:Two experiments evaluated the ability of younger and older adults to visually discriminate 3-D shape as a function of surface coherence. The coherence was manipulated by embedding the 3-D surfaces in volumetric noise (e.g., for a 55 % coherent surface, 55 % of the stimulus points fell on a 3-D surface, while 45 % of the points occupied random locations within the same volume of space). The 3-D surfaces were defined by static binocular disparity, dynamic binocular disparity, and motion. The results of both experiments demonstrated significant effects of age: Older adults required more coherence (tolerated volumetric noise less) for reliable shape discrimination than did younger adults. Motion-defined and static-binocular-disparity-defined surfaces resulted in similar coherence thresholds. However, performance for dynamic-binocular-disparity-defined surfaces was superior (i.e., the observers’ surface coherence thresholds were lowest for these stimuli). The results of both experiments showed that younger and older adults possess considerable tolerance to the disrupting effects of volumetric noise; the observers could reliably discriminate 3-D surface shape even when 45 % of the stimulus points (or more) constituted noise.
ISSN:1943-3921
1943-393X
DOI:10.3758/s13414-012-0340-x